


Roses and Thorns

by Dropsofarainbow219



Series: Roses and Thorns Universe [1]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Bisexual, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Bar, Genderbending, God - Freeform, Highschool AU, Lesbians, Masturbation, Mental Illness, Sleepovers, Snogging, Spin the Bottle, also can you guys believe this entire time ive missed out on referring to this as "saffic"?, careless parents, controlling parents, has anyone ever actually played that game irl, i feel like there should be more but i can't think of anything, i was using his name in vain archive but ok, i've calmed down now, nothing too heavy, okay also, snarky language by none other than our beloved grimm bitch, teenages, this entire time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:19:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5699827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dropsofarainbow219/pseuds/Dropsofarainbow219
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I blink, mouth hanging open. I probably look a sight, what with my un-brushed hair and unparalleled ability to blush like there’s no tomorrow. Her eyes are inquisitive and yet wholly unreadable, and then she quirks her brow again and says:<br/>“Hello, Sophie Snow.”</p><p>Basically, just your typical snowbaz, but now with gay teenage girls doing gay teenage girl stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> "She who loves roses must be patient 
> 
> and not cry out when she is pierced by thorns."
> 
> \- Sappho

**Baz**

It only makes sense that the first time I meet her is in a church.

Of course. _Of course._

I find her in the Narthex- the funeral has almost begun, and Daphne has sent me back quickly to retrieve my lilies. I’m flushed already, from the embarrassment and shame of it, of forgetting my bouquet at a time like this, and as I’m opening the door I almost run straight into her.

She’s a mess-she will always be a mess- her hair a curly golden mop piled up on the crown of her head, spilling forth across her bare shoulders, her forehead. Her eyes widen as I suddenly halt mere inches from her- we are the same height, eye to eye, at least for now.  
She has these blunt eyelashes, sticking out from her puffy lids like tiny sunbeams, and her eyes are blue- a solid wall of primary nostalgia. They’re so blue the sky looks drained in comparison; they’re so blue they remind me of my chemisty experiment with chlorine last week. They’re as blue as swimming pools, as Sunday afternoon skies, as nail polish and raspberry slushies and beetles wings. They’re so blue I take a step back. And scowl.

She has three moles on her right cheek. One over her left eyelid.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss, and this seems to startle her more. Her cheeks begin to throb squeezed cherry red, and her mouth flutters open. She blinks twice.

“I- I, um…”

“What are you, dumb?” I sneer, and finally tear my eyes away from her face, only for them to land unsuccessfully on the set of her collarbone. She has moles there, too.

She frowns then, mouth twisting into an angry set. The intensity around her thickens, and it feels like the hairs on my body are trying to rip themselves out.

“What’s your problem?” she finally gets out, spitting it in my direction.

I scowl even harder.

“You,” I say. Then the creamy tips of a curl catch my eye, and my gaze snaps down to the handful of lilies in her grasp. “Those are mine.” I exclaim, surprised, and then I drop my brows again and snatch them from her hands. She takes a step back too now- two steps between us in this first moment- surprised as well.

“I didn’t know,” she says. Her bottom lip is plumper than her top.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t go around taking things they aren’t yours.” I snap, and her eyes narrow.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go around carelessly leaving things if you’re going to be so bitchy about it.”

I’ve known this girl for two minutes and I’m already closer to slapping her than I have ever been to anyone else.  
I take a deep breath. Spinning on my heel, I stalk off back into the sanctuary. I’m at the doors when the lilt of her voice catches me, as gentle and as deadly as a spider’s web.

“They were only flowers.” she says, and then I’m yanking open the doors, and not looking back.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my good friend Kim, because she just messaged me to tell me that my last chapter was disgustingly short and that I needed to update. Also because I promised to dedicate one to her in my last fic but totally forgot, so. 
> 
> Thanks, Kim. If you just told me what your username is, I wouldn't have had to call you out like this using your real one.

**Chapter 1**

 

**Sophie**

_Thump._

I close my eyes, breathing in through my nose. I can feel the sunlight on my face in long, wispy strips. 

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

I stretch my arms over my head, feeling the bones pop, and then crack open one eye.

“Penny,” I say, “Do you have to?”

I look over at her, to where she sits, the crazy explosion of her hair dominating the right half of my room. She stops banging her foot against my bed to glance over at me.

"Do I have to what? Study? Yes, and so do you.”

I smile a little. “You know what.” I stare pointedly at her foot, which is poised and ready to swing back onto the wooden surface.

She pushes up her glasses with one finger on the bridge. “It acts as an incentive. Consider it a push factor.”

“Oh god – no emigration shit please. I’ve only just managed to forget and forgive.”

“Which I’m sure will be a helpful foundation for this year’s course.”

“Penny.” I roll over onto my stomach and stare up at her, batting my eyes and giggling a little. “It’s our last weekend before term starts. Can we just…chill?”

She doesn’t bat an eye. “If you wanted to go into town, or for a walk, or a quick swim at the Allander, then it would be acceptable. But you don’t. All you want to do is lie here- wasting away.”

“The nature of the chilling is irrelevant.”

“It is incredibly relevant. It is the central theme of the conversation.”

I roll back onto my back, flailing my fingers through the sunlight. Like seaweed through viscous saltwater. The dust particles weave their way around me, shy amoebas. I close my eyes again. 

“Okay.” I say. “Let’s go swimming.”

Penny looks at me for a minute, and then swerves round, so her feet are resting on the wall and her head is on my stomach. I thread my fingers through her hair.

Her hair is my favourite thing to play with. It’s just this vast mass of tiny frizzy curls, each one small enough to loop around my pinky. She dyes it different every year- this year it’s a slow gradient from a rich purple at the scalp to a soft, jaded green. It’s spectacular when the light hits it. 

She’s been getting better at it as well. I help her with it most years- nights spend giggling over the stench of hazardous chemicals, steamed up windows, greasy rubber gloves, stained shower curtains-stained everything. In first year, when she went for red it looked like a horror movie scene, and I made a period joke. In second year she went for blue, and I made a royal period joke. 

I didn’t help her this year. Dad bought two wall-size canvas and a car-boot-full of copper scrap metal with our dwindling savings- I’ve spent the past few months scrubbing pizza batter off pans in dominos. Besides, Penny has a small army of siblings.

“Request approved.” She says, grinning mischievously, and then knocks her feet on the wall. I throw a pillow at them. 

 

* * *

 

The first day back to school always makes you feel a little bit like you never left. I dream about it the night before- long carpeted corridors, colourful bags, crumpled papers and grey lockers and classroom smells. Wood. Loudness. Yellow light on silk. 

I look down at my new locker key. The sticker is peeling off, but it clearly says 192. The western corridor, maybe?

I get lost, but Angus finds me. My boyfriend. My tall, blond, pinched brow boyfriend. He’s peering down at my key.

“192.” he says. 

“Yes.”

“That’s not here.”

“…no.”

“That’s in the eastern corridor.”

“…Okay.”

He looks at me, as if to say “you’ve been here for seven years, Sophie”, but doesn’t actually say anything. We haven’t actually said anything to each other in a while. 

Me and Angus (Angus and I – I can just hear Penny correcting me) have been a bit…strange lately. Off-key. I mean, I love him, but sometimes I don’t really know how to talk to him anymore. I can’t think of saying anything that he would want to hear. He accused me of “changing” a couple months back, when we were still close enough to be accusing each other, but I don’t really get it. Yes, I suppose I’m changing- but isn’t that what people do when you stir them up with time? You don’t put a fish in water and then accuse it of swimming too much. 

I don’t know. Maybe I put myself in water. Maybe I don’t know what I don’t know. 

My brain is so messy. That’s why things get lost so easily- but I like to think that the important things, the things I use daily- I’ve always got those close at hand. 

Angus was travelling with his parents this summer anyway. I told him to message me, and he did, a bit, I guess. Stuff like “it’s 40 degrees today” or “we had a nice hike”. I’ve always been pretty shite at messaging- I rely heavily on smiley faces and the other person being busy. 

But he takes my hand once we get to the eastern corridor, and I try to smile at him. I don’t know. It’s a bit weird. 

I’ve just located my locker and am slotting in the key when I see her. Brown skin. Flawless brows. Hair as black as an oil spill. 

She looks up then and I feel my spine instantly straighten- rose blooming in my cheeks. Thorns snagging at lungs. Grey hurtling to a stop in front of me. 

I see the recognition and then shock register- her lips part slightly. And then her brows –seriously, fucking flawless, I don’t even know- fall into an uncomfortably familiar scowl, and a rush of white walls and sunshine and creamy petals and venomous words flood through me. _Don’t think I’ve forgotten,_ I think about telling her. _I’m not likely to forget someone like that._

She pushes out her bottom lip and then lifts a single brow, condescending. Her eyes are cold and sharp on mine. Still a bitch then, I think. 

Her gaze flickers to Angus for a moment, and then they’re back to the ground and her crowd. I watch her pass me, resisting the urge to grind my teeth. What the fuck is she doing here? 

“Sophie?” 

I realise I’ve not moved in the past minute, and Angus is looking at me. Exhaling, I twist my key and swing open the metal door, to reveal its empty insides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know this chapter is also disgustingly short. This is totally an artistic choice and has nothing to do with me being little more than a potato with access to a keyboard. 
> 
> (In other words, this is all un-betad, first draft stuff.( I'm just going to wing it.))
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who left comments or bookmarks or kudos! :) They're always welcome. Update soon.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THE INCREDIBLY AND AMAZINGLY RELEVANT SAPPHO QUOTE I FOUND TO PUT AT THE TOP OF THIS FANFICTION. (it's in the prologue description bit) LOOK AT IT IT'S SO ON POINT I'M SO HAPPY

**Baz**

I glower at the blackboard (seriously, blackboard? what decade is this?), crushing the origami rose in my palm. My new philosophy teacher- Mr. Perez- is prattling on about thought experiments and train tracks and obese men. Would you push someone off a bridge to save five? Would you blow them up with dynamite?

Would you punch them in the face just because they have really blue eyes?

I scowl and straighten my back, tearing off another strip of jotter paper to fold. What are the chances? The one school I get sent to for my last year in this entire damn country, and she has to be there, fluffy hair half-tugged back in a low ponytail, mouth gaping, a life-size Ken doll practically attached at her hip.

Her boyfriend looks nothing like her- all shaved chin and neat hair and Windsor tie. He looks fresh out his package. He looks like the plastic casing is still holding him together. He looks like a “best-seller!” sticker is stamped across his forehead.

She looks fresh out a hurricane, or a forest, or a fairyland. She looks like she eats cereal at 2 in the morning and sometimes substitutes brushing her teeth with expired mouthwash after.

Mouthwash- it’s probably fucking blue.

I force myself to breathe. It’s not like I’m still mad about the lilies- that was two years ago, and I’m not five- I’m just- just-

I’m just mad.

“Pitch! What would you do?” Mr. Perez seems awfully excitable, if the way he’s practically bouncing the balls of his feet are anything to go by. His eyes are red and bulging.

“I’d push them off, of course.” I say quietly, enjoying the flicker of distaste on his face.

* * *

I see her in the dining hall. My new acquaintances- Danielle, Nina- are apparently in a social circle that just touch her’s- so I find myself located not at her table, but the next one over. Close enough, far enough. I could catch her eye if I wanted, but I don’t have to.

I wanted.

She noticed me too when I came in- her brows furrowed and she sat up straight, looking at me more demandingly and prolonged than I know is polite. _Didn’t anyone teach you manners?_ I sneer mentally at her, and apparently the answer is no, judging the way she began to eat two minutes later. She eats like a roman soldier about to go to war- too much, too quick, too messy. Founded on war- she must be, to have that sort of intolerable intensity. So hot she’s surpassed red altogether.

Blue. Blue, blue, blue.

She glances up and spills apple juice on her cardigan.

I lean over to Trisha. “Who are they?” I ask, nodding towards her table. Danielle leans back and squints.

“Well,” she says, “You’ve got Rachel Smith,” she points to a red-head. “Georgia Lawrence, Jennifer Brown, Henry Miller… Julia Davis, Enola Thomas, Angus Wellbelove, Sophie Snow and Penelope Bunce.” She finishes with the purple-green haired girl sitting right next to _Snow_ , who is currently loudly sharing what appears to be a hilarious story from the way Snow is snorting into her pie and swallowing her giggles. Her head falls forward- her lips seem to be trying to split her face in half they’re spread so wide- and a piece of loose curl topples into her eyes. She grips the table-top with one hand, gasping for air as they all settle back down.

“Why?” Danielle asks, and I narrow my eyes and shrug. I’ve never liked people who ask too many questions.

 

* * *

  
**Sophie**

 

When I get home, the first thing I do is get a shower. Once that’s done, I pull on a pair of holey pyjama bottoms that seem clean-ish, and locate a crumpled top behind the sofa chair. I pull that on to, and then head on over to the mirror, hairbrush in hand.

I’ve seen my own reflection so many times it’s like I’ve become invisible. Like my own skin has become camouflage, and I just melt into the background of this messy little room, pink paint peeling at the edges, plastic floorboards lifting up, reaching for the ceiling. I stretch on my toes, reaching up for it too. The bones and muscle in my limbs grind and pop, clambering over each other as I pull. It’s getting closer. It may be mildly mouldy and damp in places but it’s getting closer.

I return back to ground, the heels of my feet slapping the floor.

I look back at myself. Long, curly hair all over- not like Penny’s, which is wild in a confident, defiant kind of way, just like the rest of her- mine is more of a flop, more of a shrug, more of the kind of consuming clutter which you either find endearing or annoying, and most likely both.

Technically you could call it blonde – but only in the way you can call water blue. Like yeah, if you were to draw a cartoon you would choose the blue crayon, and everyone would know what you meant – but if you were to actually look at it, it wouldn’t be very blue at all. Though the metaphor kind of ends there – water has the potential to be anything, every kind of colour, whatever you want, whilst also remaining nothing. Impartial. Blue doesn’t do it justice. When I say my hair isn’t really blonde I just mean it’s more of a mousy brown with just enough highlights to be a convincing trespasser.

I lower my gaze to my face, meeting murky blue eyes that seem always a little confused. I don’t know if that’s actually my default expression of if I just struggle with self-identity or some other issue, but they’re always like that. And my brows don’t help – they’ve always been kinda thick and wavy.

I run a finger over them, suddenly thinking of her.

Well, maybe not suddenly. I guess she’s been burning in the back of my head since earlier today, since she scowled at me upon first seeing me again, since she strolled past our table during lunch, watching me. She wasn’t actually looking my way, but I know she meant for me to see it – _I know._

She’s very slim – skinny but without the awkwardness – and has this chopped black hair, short for a girl’s. It falls to her shoulders more or less. Her skin is all campfire, golds and reds, and she has these pouty eyes and killer cheekbones. Like honestly, she could probably slice me in half with those cheekbones if she felt so inclined, and by the way she was glaring at me earlier I’m not so convinced she isn’t.

And her eyebrows. Christ, her brows are the worst – these fucking symmetrical, bold slants across her forehead, arched at just the right place, thinning down to a point so small angels couldn’t dance on it. I doubt angels would want to go near her anyway – she looks like satan in the form of upper-class ostracism and well-groomed arrogance. I swear to god, every single hair in those brows is brushed to angular perfection.

I roll onto the bed, kicking the lampshade’s button off, sending the room into a cast of various greys and blacks. The orange lamplight flickers across my bed sheets and bare feet, which I kick up onto the wall. I don’t know what her problem is anyway – it was just a handful of lilies, two years ago. How was I supposed to know they were her’s? I was only curious, and they were awfully beautiful…

I close my eyes, shuffling around the covers to get comfortable. And then I find that I can’t, because the lamplight seems extra bright tonight, and Dad isn’t home again, which would be fine, probably, if he was replying to my text. I asked him how work was, which is code for _don’t pull another all-nighter to play with scrap metal and paint and clay and old batteries, only to return at 3 in the morning smelling of cigarette smoke._ It’s also code for _should I make dinner?_ And _remember me?_

I don’t know. I guess it’s code for a lot of things.

It’s not that I don’t support his art, it’s just that – well, it’s just _just._ It’s just – art shouldn’t cost you so much. It’s just – you should maybe be a person before being an artist. Or a father.

I roll over again. This side of the bed is cold.

I didn’t make dinner today. I grabbed a packet of doritos and two oranges on the way home. The extra cheesy ones are my favourite.

I sigh into the soft of my pillow, tracing eyebrow-like shapes onto the mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcannon that Sophie has a bit of a thing for Baz's eyebrows. And honestly, who can blame her?


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being a bit heavy-handed with the food metaphors for Sophie. The temptation was just too grape.

**Sophie**

I wind up being late for school next day, barely cramming in half a cereal bar and managing to splash my face before heading out. I walk to school after catching a twenty minute bus ride– it’s one of the sole moments of quiet in my otherwise colourfully boisterous day, though I admit it is more enjoyable when I’m not late and therefore not wheezing and sweating as I hurtle down the pavement. Which isn’t all that often, really.

But still, the creaminess of the greens on the trees, all scooped avocado, so vivid I swear I can taste it – the hash brown textures of the trunks – the buttery hues of the awakening sun, sliding in and melting between the leaves; it’s all so good, it’s all so rich. Ms. Smith – my English teacher – says I have “a wistful imagination” – Penny says I see everything through an Instagram filter. Mayfair, she specified.

I don’t think you can really consider yourself a proper instagrammer if you only take photos of study books and highlighted diaries, but Penny is a force to be reckoned with.

I end up walking through the door just as the register is being called out – Ms. Smith gives me a disapproving look, before gesturing to my seat. The last available one. Which I’ll be stuck with for this year. Next to her.

Am I in a fucking Hollywood movie?

“Miss. Snow, if you’ll be so kind to partake in today’s lesson from behind a desk.” I scowl and shuffle forwards, trying not to knock anything over, or I don’t know, fall on my face. As I sit down I see that she is actually _smirking_ – smirking like we’re in some 50s black and white movie and she’s the femme fatale about to seduce the protagonist before slitting his throat whilst donned in black lingerie. I didn’t know people actually smiled like that in real life – I didn’t know people could project rays of assholeness merely through the gradients of their lips.

I get out my stuff, accidentally littering the floor with the remains of my cereal bar, which has become significantly more crushed, probably due to its recent acquaintance with my English folder. I pull that out currently, brushing off the crumbs – I notice my desk buddy quirking a reproachful brow. I glower, just in case she looks in my direction.

I pull out my tattered winnie-the-pooh pencil case – a gift from my aunt Ebb from a good few years ago that I can never bring myself to replace – and notice her eyeing that as well. I see that she has a Jack Will’s case – _of_ fucking _course._

“Titania Sebastiana Grimm-Pitch?” Ms. Smith is reading out the register.

“Just Baz Pitch.” says the girl next to me, and I can’t stop myself from examining her. _Baz?_ What kind of name is that? What kind of name is all of that?

It kind of suits her though I guess – trust her with her fucking pencil skirt and villainous mouth and killer brows to be all posh.

“Sophie Snow?”

“Here,” I murmur, and then she is looking back at me, and I blink, mouth hanging open. I probably look a sight, what with my un-brushed hair and unparalleled ability to blush like there’s no tomorrow. Her eyes are inquisitive and yet wholly unreadable, and then she quirks her brow again and says:

“Hello, Sophie Snow.”

She says it carefully, testing out the words. It feels like she’s mocking me – the way she says my full name, the way her gaze circles me.

“Why do you keep glaring at me?” I blurt out, and both her brows rise this time, so controlled. It’s like she’s practiced every way in which her body can move and refined it to her idea of perfection.

She opens her mouth to say something, and then pauses and seems to change her mind.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” she says coolly, and then leans forward on our desk, demonstrating an obvious interest in listening to the lecture, and effectively ending all possibility of conversation.

* * *

  
This lunchtime _Baz_ sits even closer to us than last time – she winds up at my table. The two girls that were primarily accompanying her all through yesterday – Danielle Jones and Nina Davis – are sort of friends with my friends, and as one of them – Nina – has a music lesson today and some of the usuals here are already studying or in the library or running clubs, there is enough spare room that I find myself right opposite her. Baz Pitch.

I wonder briefly why she chooses to go by those two out of her bountiful options. I wonder what Sebastiana means.

I wonder why she is scowling into her yoghurt.

It’s natural – flavoured. Why doesn’t she love herself?

She looks up suddenly, catching me watch her, and I freeze, eyes growing wider. Her eyes bore hard against mine, stone tiles slamming into me, and I realise I’m holding my breath. She has my attention – and then she slowly, and ever so deliberately raises a single pointed brow.

I tear my eyes away and stab my pasta angrily. I’m fuming – and when I look back up at her, those flat eyes are suddenly full with amusement.

“Sophie,” whispers Penny, a light hand brushing against my elbow. I jerk back – I hadn’t realised I was leaning in across the table top. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” I say abruptly, and straighten my back, staring down at my tray. “Yeah – I’m, I’m fine.”

I hadn’t been keeping track of the conversation, but now Enola leans over.

“So how come you moved school then, Baz?”

My head snaps up and I look at her. She’s smiling pleasantly in Enola’s direction, all empty manners.

“Change of scenery.” She says, and there’s a heartbeat’s pause, before Enola shrugs and leans back, decidedly not pushing it. Judging from the tightness around Baz’s eyes, I consider it wise.

“And how are you finding the scenery here?” I ask suddenly.

I don’t really make a habit of being wise.

I can feel Penny looking at me out of the corner of my eye, and the noise at the table has dropped by a fraction. There’s something intriguing about Baz– something about the way she carries herself, the way she talks, the blank slate of her expression – it gets people’s attention. Even Angus is watching, momentarily halting his conversation from where he sits next to Henry.

But Baz is looking at me. Her eyes are sharp for a moment – and then they turn calculating. She drags her gaze over the visible length of me, the side of her lips lifting in a sly half-grin.

“Not bad.” she says finally, piercing me with her eyes, and I swallow dryly, all of a sudden inexplicably uncomfortable. I stare at my lap for the remainder of the lunch.

* * *

  
**Baz**

Vera picks me up after school. When I attended my last school, the car she chauffeured was this huge sleek black thing, towering over the other cars in the traffic, glistening like it ought to be draped in matching velvet. The leather on the inside was all white – when the music played you could feel the vibrations through the fabric. Daphne kept a collection of Beethovan in the glove box.

Vera has the good sense not to drive it here. Watford is a decent school, but it doesn’t have the same money. Here the stay-at-home mums drive silver Hondas and play capitol radio. I _have_ seen a few BMWs, though.

I slip into the white toyoto, after putting my bag in the boot. The inside is all black.

“How were your lessons?” she asks as we roll out of the car park, queuing up in long line of silver metal and chattering families. I shrug, staring out the window, my elbow digging into the side.

“Okay.” I say.

“Good.”

Vera and I have always had a sort of quiet understanding. The way I feel about her is undoubtedly similar to how a lot of children feel about their Nannies – she’s like the slightly rounder, realer, warmer version of a mother that isn’t really mine. And when I say warm, I really mean lukewarm – everything is cold in our household.

But she knows me in a way my parents don’t – my mother-in-law buys me expensive jewellery and kisses me on the forehead before I go to sleep, but Vera is the one who showed me how to use a tampon and brings me spaghetti when they’re out at some fancy dinner on a school night.

She knows why I had to move school. She knows that I’m angry underneath the calm.

I clench my fists and stare at where the trees meet the pavement.

“How was day 2?” She asks, finally pulling out onto the main road.

“Similar to day 1.”

I’m thinking of Sophie – Sophie _Snow_. Unpredictable, that one. A strange clash of modesty and bravery, nerve and downright stupidity. I think of the bubbling mess of her mouth, half-formed thoughts bursting forth. I think of the shade of pink on her cheeks when I answered her little question about the scenery.

I think about comparing it to rosebuds.

I think about how I shouldn’t really be thinking about girls, especially girls like her.

Girls that pull you in – girls that are all whirlpools and suction – girls with sharp eyes – those are the ones to avoid.

Find a fluffy one who laughs at everything and is always apologising. Find one who wrinkles her nose when you make a comment that’s a bit edgy and goes _“What…?”_ ,voice lifting at the end, before bursting and giggling. Find one with a half-decent D-cup plus, and take her instead. Take whatever she gives. Whatever’s free.

Though, Sophie Snow is kind of fluffy. Fluffy and electric. And she is definitely at least a D.

_Ok, Pitch. Let’s not do this._

By the time I’m home so are my parents, and I’m not ever really in the mood to deal with them, so I go straight upstairs for a shower. I wonder if I’ll get away with asking Vera to bring dinner to my room. I wonder if they’ll notice if I drown myself in the bathroom. I wonder if they’ll care.

Mordelia once told me to adopt a healthier mindset. But I’m not about to take advice from a pouty 11 year old – I’ll damn well do whatever I want with my mind. And if I want to dig my own grave with it, at least it’ll fit.

I turn on the fan and remove my school clothes. Then I step in front of the wall length mirror – everything is shining in here. It’s so fucking bright.

I pull out my makeup remover and start to undo all the little things I do to feel better about myself. I don’t give a fuck if its vanity – I definitely have bigger sins to worry about.

Besides, when you have a literal mask comprised of Chanel and Lancome, it’s easier to remember to keep up the metaphorical one.

I step into the shower. It’s burning away the knots under my skin – in fact it feels like it’s burning away the whole thing. I imagine clumps of flesh, like chocolate, dripping down over my skeleton, melting at my feet. I imagine dipping my fingers into it, tasting the sweet.

My fingernails catch at the underside of my arms.

I tilt my head back and dip it into the heaviest line of water. It’s like being massaged by bullets. I hesitate, before lowering the temperature slightly.

When I get out, I ignore my body in the mirror. It doesn’t steam up, thanks to the extra couple hundred mummy and daddy threw in.

I don’t like to look at the curves of my body since it happened. Since she last touched me.

I don’t like to look at anything.

I get out and put on my pyjamas. Fuck this. I’m not going down to eat with them. Not today. Not with my skin still red and the colour blue still simmering in my mind’s eye.

Blue shouldn’t simmer, or boil. Blue should be cold. Blue should be icy.

But sometimes – it’s the warmest thing.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's left kudos and comments!! It makes me so so so happy (and also reminds me to get my shit together and actually upload). So thanks. Beautiful beings. beans. 
> 
> i had to ruin it.

**Sophie**

Penny and I have been arguing. Again. We seem to be doing this an awful lot lately.

She was at my house doing homework – maths. Somehow, they have managed to make it even more disgusting this year.

“I’m thinking of cutting my hair.” I'd said, my back on the floor, legs on the bed. She was sitting up properly.

She didn’t look up.

“Really short. Like – up to here.” I'd gestured to my ears. “Boy short. You know?”

She'd looked up at me. “Why?” she'd said. “Your hair is fine.”

I'd frowned, not knowing how to respond. It wasn’t really about my hair – it wasn’t about looking fine – it was about this bubble that’s been growing inside me, right between my lungs, making it weird to breathe. It was about the discomfort – the edginess that’s been gnawing at me for a while now.

I sort of know this feeling. I’ve sort of been there before.

Cutting hair isn’t about how it looks to me. It’s about taking some of the weight off my neck.

I'd shrugged and she'd huffed. “I don’t get why you always want to change. Just – settle down for a bit.”

“What’s wrong with change?”

She'd kept reading.

“Can you not ignore me?” I'd said, raising my voice and sitting up a bit. “What’s wrong with it?”

She'd slammed her book shut. My heart was beating.

“Nothing.” she'd said. “Nothing is wrong with it. It just seems kind of boring to be always talking about it.”

“How is it more boring than staying the same?” Her mouth had gone all tight-lipped. When Penny gets like this, it’s normally best to stop talking.

“Besides,” I'd said. “You literally dye your hair different every year.”

She'd stood up. Packed away her things.

“I don’t want to talk about your hair anymore.”

I'd stood up too.

“Well, you obviously want to fucking talk about something.”

She'd turned around. Yanked open the door.

“No.” she'd said. “I want to study.”

And just left. Like that.

I’m lying on my bed now, staring up at the ceiling. Friendships are hard, I know that – especially when you’re both growing up _etc etc_ – but me and Penny, we’re something else. We’re peas in a pod. We’re soulmate things. We’re _best friends._

And even though we still click with each other – even though I still know her like no one else and laugh harder with her than I will with anyone else – I feel like sometimes I can’t tell her about things. I feel like she doesn’t understand.

And worst of all – sometimes I feel like she doesn’t want to.

Making friendship work is hard. But making best friendship work can feel like trying to play music on broken strings. It can feel like matching bracelets that look like handcuffs up close. It can feel like a hand to hold – but sometimes your hands get sweaty, sometimes those nails dig a bit too hard into your skin, sometimes they grab you so tight it feels like your bones are grinding together into dust.

Sometimes it’s coming to a cross road, and wanting to go two different directions, without letting go.

And sometimes it’s that silence, that angry, desperate silence as you both stand there, feeling the throbbing edge of the other’s pulse.

* * *

  
I find myself struggling in class. I took Advanced Higher English and Art, crashing higher History, and fuck knows they’ve stepped it all up a notch. I can only be grateful I had the good sense to drop maths.

I can’t say the same for hockey.

We all have to do a compulsory sport at Watford – hockey, football, or tennis. I chose hockey, primarily because I do not have enough foot-to-foot coordination to even attempt football, and then because I don’t own a tennis racket. And my upper body strength is kinda shit. And the ball just, moves really fast.

Anyway, I’m half-decent at hockey, so.

The boys get the same choice, but with rugby instead of hockey, for some unknown traditional (or sexist, if you ask Penny) reason. It doesn’t bother me – launching myself at other human beings for sport is not particularly appealing to me.

Might get rid some of that internalised anger, or whatever. But then again, might also end up with seven stitches on my face, like Jeremy White last year.

I dismiss the thought and tune back in. A quick assessment of the changing room shows that it’s roughly the same girls as last year. The room is thick with bubbling voices and deodorant clouds, and I cough, changing as quickly as possible. Penny dropped hockey this year and instead went for tennis, which for some reason sparked another argument between the two of us. I can’t remember why, anymore.

Instead I talk a bit to Julia and Enola, standing with them when we head out to the pitch. We’re all a crowd of red and green – I secretly love the games uniforms. Fitted polo neck t-shirts, forest green down the middle with cherry red stripes on the side. Pleated matching skorts, and long woolly socks that we pull up to our knees. I like the way the girls look in them – I like the way I look in them. Like I’m here for business. A little bit womanly.

Coach blows a whistle, sending us on two laps for warm up. I haven’t exercised much over the summer – and I forgot my sports bra - so I wind up behind. I join the back of the group as Coach shouts out the warm ups. We need to get into pairs.

Well, Enola and Julia pair off with each other immediately, the closest I’ve got to friends here, and I stumble over my words a bit, too shy to ask the other girls. I kind of find my own gender a little intimidating sometimes.

Thankfully, Jennifer catches my eye, and beckons me to join her and Georgia as a three, but Coach shakes her head and gestures to the other girls who still don’t have pairs. Or the other girl, as I watch Danielle form a pair with Janet.

“Snow!” yells Coach. “Get over here! In a group with Grimm-Pitch!”

I resist the urge to throw something, and try not to look like I’m stomping over. She just leans on her hockey stick, looking like the coolest thing ever, like she wasn’t also left rejected. Though I suppose, she is the new girl, so at least she has an excuse.

“Snow.” She says, her eyes like wet slate. She raises a brow – I can see she’s mildly amused. “Isn’t this a delightful coincidence.”

I huff and pick up a nearby ball. “Just-”I say. “Don’t be – _this._ ” I gesture vaguely in her direction, not meeting her eyes.

“What’s _this_ , Snow?” Definitely amused now.

“This – that,” I sigh. “You know – fucking annoying.”

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you, Snow. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to wash it out?”

I flinch, and then glare. I can feel myself radiating heat. She’s hit a nerve, though she probably hasn’t noticed.

“Fuck _off,_ Baz.” I say, and stomp off into an unused part of the pitch, not every trying to disguise it this time. _Bitch._

She follows me, and without even waiting for her to get into place, I hammer the ball at her so hard it lifts. She shifts her stick, catching it immediately. Didn’t even have to duck.

Of course she’s going to be a better player than me.

The exercise involves us just passing the ball for now. She straightens up, narrows her eyes at me, and then hits it back. A straight line cutting down the pitch. It positively glides on the AstroTurf.

I manage to catch it, thanking the heavens I don’t fall over in the process. We pass a few more times, with me only missing once, and her being pristine. I have to admit that she does look extra good in our uniform.

Coach steps it up a bit, getting us to practise our tackling. I look up at Baz – the long, lethal length of her.

She’s going to murder me.

I brace my shoulders and start dribbling towards her. I’m not even wearing my gum guard –most of the girls don’t wear them, but I normally do, what with the images of smashed up teeth printed into my memory tissue. But I didn’t today – I’m not about to look like a total idiot in front of her.

She’s close now – I try to drag the ball swiftly to left, around her – of course she catches me, meeting me and trying to hook her stick around the ball from under me. My stick smashes into hers – she swears, hers was probably made of mahogany or some shit – and manages to wrestle it out of my possession, moving to get it around me. I don’t let her – I may have less skill but I’m fiery when I get pissed – and smash my stick into hers again. This time she’s pushing back – I can smell her sweat, I can feel her breath on my fore head – and we’re stuck in that position for a few minutes, just breathing and shoving into each other. I glance up at her for moment – she’s staring at me – and then I must relax ever so slightly and she tips the ball away from me, catching it and slipping past. She’s so fast, and lithe – I’m just left staring at her, fuming slightly, trying to catch my breath.

“Good job, Pitch.” says Coach, and I realise she’s watching us. Everyone else has already finished. Her eyes slide between the two of us, and she raises her brows and turns away. For some reason, I feel like blushing.

“Well, I see you two are ready for a game.” She says, and I look over at Baz, to where she is standing a bit away from me, tall and evil as ever. She catches me looking and frowns, before her face grows impassive again. I wipe at my brow self-consciously. The whistle blows, letting us know to gather round – she stalks past me, smelling vaguely like bergamot and cedar. I blink.

* * *

  
Me and Penny never really make up. She just hands me her left ear bud at lunch or I ask for a pencil or we laugh at a mutual friend’s joke – and then it’s almost like it never really happened. It’s almost okay. It’s almost forgiven.

I’m at her house. We’re off to a party – it’s easier to ignore the awkward spaces between us sometimes it we’re somewhere loud and sociable – somewhere with distractions.

And I like parties. Not because I’m much of the wild type normally – more because they just make me feel open. Like I’m stepping out of a bubble. Flipping open a latch.

I spend an awful lot of time inside my own head.

“How’re you doing your eyes?” asks Penny. She’s standing in front of the mirror, tugging on her tight red skirt and smudging her eyeliner with her index finger.

I shrug, resting my head on my forearms. I’ve got on my least ripped pair of jeans – I actually make my own rips, that’s the kind of daring fashionista I am – and a silver sequin top. The sequins keep cutting into my skin, but I don’t complain because Penny lent it to me and it felt like a peace offering.

“Pencil liner, probably. Last time I tried smokey eye your mum almost called child abuse.”

She smiles a little, even though I maybe shouldn’t make those kind of jokes. Dad’s a fucking mess, but he wouldn’t hit me.

She throws the liner towards my head and it lands within the folds of her mauve bedsheets. “Wipe it on your hand first.”

“I know.” I stand up, rolling the tip into my skin before running it around my upper lid and halfway across my lower. Penny says makeup makes my eyes look bigger and bluer. But I like it because it makes me feel like I’ve half got my shit together.

I run a few coats of mascara over my lashes, dabbing blush onto my cheeks. Penny passes me the lip gloss.

“Here,” she says, and scrunches her fingers through my hair so it looks fluffier. I grin at her, overcome with a rush of affection. This is why we put up with each other’s shit. Because this moment – that feeling between teenage girls as you dress together and laugh together and make each other pretty – it feels like home. It feels like belonging. Sense.

It feels like you’re part of something.

She pulls me up by my elbow and grabs her glasses. “Good to go?”

I nod and we head downstairs. We both know from experience that heels are _never_ worth it.

We get the bus there, yellow light shining on glittery skin. We’re going to Elizabeth McDonald’s – normally whoever throws the party just invites the whole year.

It’s too loud – so loud it hurts my head, which is why I like it. The music is normally crap, but if you turn up the volume enough on anything it can make you feel alive. It’s semi-dark – couples are already squirming against each other in corners, and I try not to look or go near them. Penny spots a few of our friends and we go over and hug and scatter compliments around like they’re worth their weight in money.

The thing about the drinks is that you have to bring it yourself or befriend someone who does, and since I fall into neither of these categories I share about two sips of vodka with Enola and drink coke for the rest of the evening. I’m disappointed – the other reason I come to these things is to stop thinking.

I eventually head outside. Most of our friends are sufficiently buzzed to give up on small talk and Penny is in mid-conversation with Henry. My head hurts and my arms are cold – I sit on the stone steps and stare at the lemony grass in the lamplight, and at the trail of ants writhing across the panels of concrete. There are at least three couples devouring each other, and several people smoking what is probably weed. One of the girls – brunette, turquoise dress stretched tight across her half-exposed breasts – stands up, wobbling, and hands me the cigarette she was smoking. “I’m going to find Jeremy.” She slurs, patting me vacantly on the shoulder and heading past me. I blink, looking over my shoulder as she retreats, and then back down at the cigarette. It has her pink lipstick smudged across it.

I bring it to my lips. I’ve smoked once or twice before – when Dad left a packet lying around and hadn’t left his room for three days, when I forgot to shower for a week – the smoke clogs up my lungs and I cough, closing my eyes. The girl’s lipstick tastes like strawberries.

Eventually Penny comes out and finds me. She’s giggling, and then frowns when she sees me. “Are you smoking? Come inside, it’s fucking freezing. I couldn’t find you. They’re starting to play a game.”

I let her pull me up and follow her down the hallway to the lounge. Everyone’s talking loudly and arranging themselves into something that resembles a circle – Penny drags me down and I sit, making sure there’s no crisps or gum beneath me. One of the boys has an empty beer bottle in his hand – the label is covered in various inky "illustrations" and writing. He’s hollering, face flushed – his friends laugh and slide the bottle into the centre. “Who wants to go first?” yells a girl with hair as blonde as corn.

One of the girls is snorting and giggling as she reaches out towards it – I look up, finding myself scanning the room absentmindedly, and then freeze.

Baz is staring at me – when our eyes lock she raises a brow and smirks ever so slightly. She’s wearing darker makeup, bright red lips – and a plain black tank top that does something stupidly good for her figure. Her skin is warmer than I’d realised – like dappled sunlight falling onto tree branches. I frown back at her, and her eyes narrow before she looks away to smile at something a friend said. I try to look away, too.

“Remember that time Jack accidentally snogged the side of your face?” Penny is whispering into my ear, giggling again – I grin and look at the ceiling. It was gross, and boring. This was right before Angus. I never really told him – he doesn’t come to these sorts of things. I think half because his parents won’t let him, and half because he doesn’t like drunk teenage kids and cheap kisses.

“Remember that time Micah accidentally bit your tongue?” I whisper back. Penny leans back on her palms and wrinkles her nose.

“Vividly. It’s a good thing he’s so cute.”

Micah is Penny’s American boyfriend. They met by snail mailing (Penny’s kink for stationary) and are head over heels in love with each other. A lot of high school relationships are just month long flings, but Penny and Micah – they’re really _it._

We look back to where a couple are tentatively brushing their lips against each other, before retreating into their respective spaces. It’s not always full on snogging – some are shyer than others.

The next girl to spin has dark long hair, and excessively long French tips. She spins the bottle, looking up to where it lands on Baz. Where she is sitting, unfathomable and perfect as ever.

“Oh - well, I guess you’ll just have to spin it again.” announces the girl’s blonde friend, but Baz just raises a brow and shifts herself into the middle of the circle, smiling slightly as the other girl quirks her lips to the side and follows her lead. The boys start whooping – falling back on each other and vomiting laughter, whilst some members of the circle look visibly uncomfortable – but Baz just leans in, tilts her head, and crooks a finger underneath the other girl’s tanned chin. Their mouths are open almost immediately – swollen lips and wet tongues colliding in the most passionate kiss I’ve seen all night – maybe seen all my life – and the other girl drops her hand to Baz’s knee. I can see Baz’s jaw moving – the way she caresses the other girl’s hair – it suddenly strikes me that she’s done this before. This kissing girls thing.

They finally pull back, the other girl smiling widely, and Baz just shuffles back to her seat as easily as if she had just gone to grab another beer. But she looks up at the last minute – hard, dark eyes – and I swear she looks right at me. I realise my mouth is hanging open – I shut it promptly, but can’t stop staring somehow. Her lipstick didn’t even rub off.

Finally, Baz tilts her head – it feels like a question, it feels like a challenge – and I snap out of it. I duck my head down and fiddle with my fingers, picking at the carpet. And then I turn over and lower my mouth to Penny’s ear so she can hear me.

“I’m going to head back.” I say, and she frowns, pausing her conversation with the girls behind us.

“Are you sure? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say standing up. “I’ll message you when I get home – don’t worry, I’m in time for the last bus.”

Penny would never let me walk home alone when it’s dark – and I wouldn’t want to risk it either honestly – but the bus is normally okay and I live right next to the stop, so she lets me go. I think maybe Baz watches me leave – but it could just be my imagination. My mind feels raw – the bubble in my chest is swelling. I don’t want to be here anymore. All this noise is making me feel lonely.

I get the bus home, my form reflected in the scratched windows as we glide past street lights and black houses and pink and blue stores. The other cars are all man-made orange spilling onto each other, and far away. By the time I’ve made it back home, it’s a bit easier to breathe.

I remove my makeup with soap, trying not to sting my eyes, and climb under the covers with jeans still on. I smell like beer and aftertaste and voices. When I close my eyes, I see tight dresses and warm tongues and toothpaste teeth. All the spaces around me are empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, my name's April, and I'm a dashaholic. 
> 
> (also does anyone know how to do that thing where you can just paste the whole document in without having to add every single space between the paragraphs (and re-italize everything)? (or is this just the price we all have to pay for the aesthetic of archive?))
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading :)


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have a good reason for not posting this earlier. I would say I've been studying - but I haven't, I've just been thinking a lot about how I really need to be studying. I think I'm just an asshole.

**Baz**

“So,” says Nina, settling down into the seat next to me. “Gay.” she gestures towards me, her open arm a question.

I scowl, burning a hole into the desk with my eyes. “Don’t _say_ that.” I grip my pen so tight I can’t feel my fingers.

“Why not? You’d think that if you’re going to flaunt it you wouldn’t mind speaking about it.”

“It’s not that.” I say tensely, still not looking up. “I don’t care. I’m not… _ashamed._ It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?” She leans in, speaking more quietly. When I look up, her eyes are more open that I thought they would be.  “Fear of labels? Parents?”

This girl is a bit too quick for my taste. If I had known, I might’ve befriended someone else on my first day.

I look away. “Something like that.”

“Well,” she leans back abruptly. “Who gives a fuck about it? Not me.” And then she turns to face the front as our chemistry lesson begins. In her own way, she’s telling me she’s okay with it. I feel a prick of gratitude, and relax a little.

What I did the other night was stupid. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it – but if I’d get the chance I’d take it again. I’ll always take it again – that’s the issue. Kissing girls – it feels too right. It feels too much like what I’m supposed to be doing, like this is where I want to be. This is where I’m supposed to end up. To be found.

Obviously, some are better than others. That girl was pretty decent – it didn’t feel like her first either. It wasn’t like I was wildly attracted to her or anything – just stirrings, not fireworks – but I could feel blue eyes raking all over me the entire time. Like hot skin, like laser beams – _she_ was cutting right through me.

So maybe I was sending a message. Subliminally.

Okay. It was a stupid decision. And I think I might have made her uncomfortable or something, because she left right after. Which I shouldn’t feel guilty for. If she wants to be a fucking homophobe, that’s her issue. It’s literally 2016. Get educated.

She doesn’t acknowledge me in English. Not that we normally talk a lot. I don’t think she’s forgiven me yet for winning that hockey tackle.

“Page 68! Hamlet and Ophelia! The nunnery scene! Discuss.”

We both open our books, finding the correct page number. Ms. Smith walks amongst the desks, handing out sheets of paper. “Work in pairs. Brainstorm.” she says, before falling back into her leather chair and opening back up her laptop. I swear the woman is incapable of speaking in proper sentences.

A couple minutes pass before Snow rigidly reaches out for the paper, writing “THE NUNNERY SCENE” in big loopy scrawls, before drawing a bubble around it. She leans back, dropping her pencil, and her eyes twitch although she won’t look at me. I keep looking down at my book, acting as if I had not finished reading the scene five minutes previously. I’m curious to see how long it’ll take her to crack.

Another five minutes pass before she leans in, sighing heroically. She runs an aggravated hand through the mess of her curls, ruffling them in every direction. I catch the scent of her – vanilla and foam banana-flavoured sweets. It makes me think of sunshine and meadows and childhood.

I frown as she draws a line and writes “Double Betrayal” in equally barely legible chicken scratch. Her lead breaks on the L and she curses, before sweeping it across the paper and picking at the wooden skin of her pencil.

“Betrayal?” I ask, looking at her when I can take it no more. She meets my eyes immediately and her gaze hardens, although she does drop the pencil and it rolls away under the desk. She looks down, a confused expression on her face.

“Snow, I appreciate your dedication to your newly assigned duty as a scribe, but I don’t think mourning for the loss of a pencil is quite worth your time.”

“Well you probably think so – I’m not the one with the entirety of Jack Wills in my pencil case.”

I raise an eyebrow. “She speaks.”

She glares at me and stares rigidly down at the desk. I wait for a beat.

“I know it’s hard, but I urge you to consider using your vocal chords to discuss as well as insult me.”

Her hands ball into fists and she breathes hard, her face going red. She closes her eyes momentarily.

“Ophelia allows herself to be corrupted. She gives up her affections for him twice on nothing more than a command – there’s no fight, none at all on her side, for love.”

 “And you think that’s weak.” I say, watching her intently.

She looks at me now, blue and open and breathing. Her power is coming off in waves – all white horses and salt water. A muscle tightens in my jaw.

“Yes,” she says. “Of course. Don’t you?”

I look ahead. “Yes. No. Maybe. Isn’t love about being weak?”

She’s leaning forward, smoke practically coming off her. She doesn’t pluck her brows. I can see the messy trail of them down the outer regions of her eyelids.

She looks at me like she’s ready for a fight. She probably is.

“No.” she says. “No – _no_. Love is about being brave. If- If – If _anything_ , then love. That’s the whole point.”

I raise a brow at her incoherency. And also the tone of her insistence.

“Then let’s agree to disagree. Both on love, and on the use of English Grammar.”

She scowls, pulling the sheet towards her. “Git.” she replies, huffing and spitting it out. Her tongue is redder than her lips.

“What about him?” I ask.

She startles – ridiculous – and looks back up. “Who?”

“Mao Zedong. Barack Obama. The guy at the Mr.Pretzel stand – who the fuck do you think?”

She purses her lips and grinds her teeth, taking a moment to regain composure.

“What about _Hamlet_?” She says in a measured voice.

“How does he betray her?”

She blinks, staring into me. I resist the urge to twitch, or look away.

“He treats her like his enemy. He positively abuses her.”

“Betrayal and mistreatment are not the same thing.”  I remind her.

“Yes but – but the way he does it –”she’s starting to gesture wildly with her hands. “It’s brutal – it’s cold blooded. It’s a betrayal, because they were lovers. It’s a betrayal, because he was supposed to love her.”

“She betrayed him first.” I say quietly.

“Yes but – that’s not the point. It doesn’t erase what he does. And what he does is betray her.”

“In his defence,” I murmur, staring at my fingernails. “He does not know the extent to which she loves him.”

“He meant to cause pain. Isn’t that enough?”

I meet her eyes again and they’re not so hard this time – there’s something like acceptance, something a little bright. I tear my eyes away and look out the window, just so I can exhale.

* * *

I’m stretched thin by the time I get home today – I’ve slipped into silence, having lost the energy for sarcastic remarks, and am about ready to just do my homework and go straight to bed. The house is quiet, funnily enough – I don’t really know where my parents are now, and I don’t really care either. Even Vera has disappeared to go take care of the younger ones.

I run a pale hand through my hair, feeling the build-up of grease spread across the strands. I yank on them when I get to the end, my head falling back.

Slowly, I make my way upstairs. I pause on the landing, where a wall-length ornate mirror hangs, apathetically regarding me. I tilt my head to the side at my reflection, and then take my time raising a brow, imagining how Snow sees me.

Dark skin. Evening shadows. The dusk under my eyes is like a ripening bruise – the nights of staying up to finish projects and assignments and various exercises are taking their toll on me.

I look the exact opposite of her. I feel it, too.

I twitch my nose and a sudden note of orchids flickers at me. I blink, once, twice, stepping back and looking for the source. Memories flush through my mind – peach and cream skin, hot lips, the ridges of minty tastebuds, a building up – I exhale breathily, angrily, and then finally spot the source of all my anguish; a potted plant with white petals delicately unfurling. My parents must have decided the fengshui needed lightening up. My fucking parents.

I step into my room and drop my bag, trying not to fume and stomp around. But there’s nothing for it- I’m fucking pissed, and I have a right to be fucking pissed. I walk back outside and pinch off the head of one of those stupid flowers, before abruptly crushing it in my fist. 

My palm is damp – the flower sits limp and crumpled on it, and there’s black powder all over my fingertips. I stand up carefully and pause, before putting it in my bin. Let them make of that what they will. Let them fucking dare.

I wipe my hand off on a tissue, but the skin is still wet – hot saltwater drips down onto them, and I scowl, aggravated and deeply disappointed. They’re coming down thick now, rolling like a rainstorm over the slopes of my cheeks. I close my hand. My breath comes quick.

I slide down until my back is against my set of drawers. I pull hastily at my tie, yanking if off and working at my buttons. The buckle on my skirt nearly rips in my frustration – I pull back the layers of formality and get at my bra clasp, letting the metal teeth scrape red against my skin. I unhook my underwear over my hipbones, kicking them off, and then take a deep breath, and look at my bare self in the mirror.

My eyes are red and puffy – I look like a kid that’s just being beaten up in a back alleyway. My lips have swollen too – and my hair is a torn at mess. I look kind of post sex – same glow, different tugging at my mouth and chest.

My chest looks the same as ever – the size of plums, or small apples, rising out from my visible ribcage. My nipples are mauve and round. My stomach dips, then rises before my hips, which jut out, a slight curve on each side but curves nonetheless. The groomed thatch of darkness between my legs is less well kept than it used to be.

I swallow, meeting my gaze again. _Is there something so wrong with me?_ I run shaking fingers over mountain ranges of skin – over moguls of goose bumps. Remembering her doing it. Remembering being happy with that.

_Was that so bad?_

I close my eyes, still unable to put a name to the feelings. Because it’s one thing to feel it, to think about it, to feel yourself react to it – the gentle surprise, opening – and another thing to use the words that you’ve heard a thousand times before as insults. It clashes so jarringly – when I see _women,_ when I touch them, the feeling is so tender, and warm, _magic_ – and then caresses turn to fists, and the embrace becomes a cage, and you can’t breathe, and you can’t run away even if you try.

And you will try. And you will try again. And then maybe you’ll make a mistake, and your parents will try for you.

I pinch the skin on my thigh, crescent indents marking me. My legs are tired. I’m tired. Running away from what’s inside you – trying to cleanse it, wash it out, _yank_ it out – it just hurts. It just leaves you in the same place, except now you’ve got scratch marks all over yourself. Maybe worse.

Maybe worse. Maybe better. I have choices to make – but it’s never been much of a choice at all.

* * *

**Sophie**

The ground is frosty on the way back – icing sugar dusted all over the tarmac. I walk slowly, and carefully, treading forward about a metre every thirty seconds. I always fall over the most in winter, for some reason – admittedly I had it coming the time I tried to do the can-can on black ice, but I should only be punished so many times.

My breath comes out in a steamy exhale – first I imagine I’m a dragon, red wings billowing out from behind me, devil’s tail whipping round my legs – and then I imagine I’m a smoking art student in Paris writing poetry about my ex. I purse my lips and exhale. It does look an awful lot like smoke – maybe there’s something burning inside me.

The tips of my fingers are blue, even though they’ve been shoved inside my pockets.

I get back to the house in one piece, standing in the foyer for a few moments blowing on my hands. And then I hear a scuffle upstairs, and freeze.

“Dad?” I call out, but only quietly, only to myself. It’s silent, and I make my way cautiously up the stairs. As I reach the top, I see the bathroom door suddenly slam shut.

I pause on the landing. The door to his room is open, but that doesn’t mean he’s staying. Nothing ever means he’s staying.

I peer into it, feet stumbling at the threshold. There’s this half-finished sculpture in the middle of the room, and it looks like a boy, it looks like his wavy hair is made of swords – I start when I realise it’s all made of tiny swords, interlocking with each other to create skin and flesh and bone-

The bathroom door swings open, and I jump. He’s standing behind me, staring at me as if he can’t quite figure out who I am. He frowns.

“What are you doing here?”

I swallow, pinching the strap of my bag. _I live here_ , I want to say, but I don’t.

“I just finished school.” It sounds stupid even as the words come out.

There’s a moment, and then he huffs and steps his way around me. “How is work?” I call out, suddenly, just as his door is about to close.

There’s silence, and then a tired “Just do your homework, Sophie.” The door closes.

I stand for an extra minute there. My name always sounds so empty when he says it. How does he get it to sound so empty? Like I’m a cardboard cut-out of myself – like I’m a vessel that hasn’t been filled. Or already used up.

I walk into my room.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a part of me that is all give, that is all alive and fiery and free, pouring out of me into the world – and then sometimes there’s a hollowness instead where my ribcage should be, and it’s just this black hole, this sucking that is endlessly taking from me. This dry, hard, vacuum – once an online test told me it was anxiety with a side of depression – I just think of it as the hole. And sometimes it’s there and sometimes it isn’t, but I think it might be as inherent a part of me as the part that is sparkly and giving.

On the bad days it just feels like constant falling. Constant hurtling into the black – I imagine fragments of me disintegrating and tumbling into each other as they give into it, like jigsaw pieces that are being shaken in a box. Nonsense. On really bad days, not even Penny knows what to with me.

But it’s been awhile since a really bad day, so I brush at slightly damp cheeks and take out my homework.

See, sometimes life is about being the best you can be, but sometimes it’s just about being, and I think that that might be enough. To not give any more than your breathing.

I think that it might be okay.

I stare out at the birds fluttering around the lamp post, chasing each other, and wonder about how much of our lives we spend in a cage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It isn't really a fic of mine until someone gets naked in front of a mirror. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! I'll try and update frequently! But!! I suck!  
> Ta x


	7. Chapter 6

**Sophie**

“Do you think Hamlet is really mad?” Baz asks me, leaning in, a thin line forming between her brows. It’s like cleavage – eyebrow cleavage. Is that a thing? Can it be a thing?

“What?” I’m fumbling around for my rubber in my pencil case – there’s so much fluff and dirt and also sand, though I’m not sure how it got there. I finally locate it, along with a few mints.

When I look up, Baz is still frowning, but this time more in disgust. I hold out the least fluffy mint and offer it to her. “Want one?”

She leans back, scrunching up her nose. She has a high, tall nose that’s a perfect triangle. Sometimes I have to resist the urge to borrow Penny’s set square to check if there are actually right angles.

“How long have those been there, Snow?”

I shrug and unwrap one, popping it into my mouth. Maybe it’s a little sweeter that it’s supposed to be – something to do with chemical breakdowns?

“A while.” I mumble around the mint.

“If you’re trying to poison me, you could at least attempt to be subtle.”

“I’m eating one,” I point out, “And it’s not my fault you can’t recognise a nice gesture even when it’s waving its naked ass in front of you.”

“Nothing about that can be interpreted as nice, trust me Snow.”

I lean forward, my hair falling in my face. I forgot my hair bobble today – Baz keeps glaring at my general head area and brushing it off “her” side of the desk with her text. “I don’t want to catch your clumsiness,” she had said earlier. “It’s probably contagious.”

“No.” I say now, business -like as I annotate Ophelia’s speech. Half of Shakespeare is just translating it – well, for most of us it is – I’m pretty sure Baz actually speaks in iambic pentameter when she’s alone.

She frowns, confused. Maybe I should start cataloguing all her different frowns in a Laura Ashley style booklet. I could ask Penny to help (again, stationary kink. Micah actually chose a book theme for his letter to ask her out. Imagine – using paper to create artwork inspired by more paper. Amazing. She cried for 20 minutes when she opened it.)

“What are you talking about?” asks Baz.

“No,” I say again. “As in no, I do not trust you.”

There’s a moment of silence, and when I look up I expect her to be doing her exasperated frown, but she’s actually pouting. As in full-fledged, puffy eyes pouting. I guess she’s finally putting the naturally turned down slopes of her lips to good use.

“Oh come on.” I say, staring at her. “As if you care.”

“I don’t.” She’s still pouting, but it’s less extreme now.

“Then stop that.”

“What?”

“That thing. That thing you’re doing with your face.”

She looks at me. Her eyes begin solidify back into her usual moodiness again. It’s almost a comfort.

“At least you can trust me not to feed you the tumbleweed equivalent of my pencil case. If I were to poison you, I promise it would be much more dignified.”

“Would it?” I find myself almost smiling, and stop.

She sniffs. “Yes. I would probably sneak it into your apple juice. It wouldn’t be hard to locate elemental mercury from the chemistry department. But maybe Belladonna would be more appropriate.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“How do you know I drink apple juice?”

She looks pointedly at the stains at my jumper, making me flush. Talking to her is like accidentally engaging in a paintball fight with a trained shooter – you don’t focus for two seconds to have fun, and next thing you know, you’ve been hit 17 times in the leg with the yellow.

Ms. Smith calls on us and we get back to work, adding more lines to the mind map. (“Obviously, he’s a little mad” – “Being really pissed off and being clinically insane are not the same thing, Snow”). When class ends, she’s out the door before I can zip up my pencil case, and I’m left there, rolling my leftover mint between two fingers and feeling confused.

* * *

  
Hockey on Wednesdays. I’m running along the pitch, stumbling up the darkening stairs and dialling in the school password as fast as my frozen fingers will allow, trying to avoid the worst of the rain. Some of the girls gather behind me, groaning as my hand slips on the cool of the metal and I have to punch it in again. By the time the door has swung open, the sky has torn itself apart above us and high-pitched squeals fill the greying air. People push their way past me into the warmth of the changing rooms, and I run my palms over the chilled dampness of my face. I smell like the cold.  

I step into the changing room and locate my corner. I’m so busy rubbing my fingers together and shucking off my trainers that I almost don’t notice her, sitting and chatting to Nina a metre away. She meets my eyes when I look up, and lifts an eyebrow ever so slightly. It feels like an inside joke, but I frown slightly for her benefit all the same. Her eyes are twinkling.

She’s already fully changed, slender legs crossed underneath her grey skirt (which actually comes down to her knees – the rest of us outgrew ours or roll them up.) She is rotating her ankle, pointing and straightening out the length of her foot as she listens to whatever the other girl is saying. She looks up at me again, and I feel my skin prickle.

There’s a moments pause, and her eyes merge from amused into something else.

I swallow and look down, needlessly rubbing my hands together again. I feel nervous. Why do I feel nervous? This is a changing room. We’re all girls. Why the fuck am I nervous?

I breathe in raggedly, and look back over at her direction. She’s moving her head to the side to listen to her friend more carefully – but her eyes are full of the sort of meaning that poets would swoon over. Her eyes are full of the sort of darkness that would piss off a black hole. Her eyes have something moving in them, something swirling and rising, and I feel like it’s coming for me.

I’ve pulled my socks off already, and I’m now running my index finger and thumb over the hem of my t-shirt. Fuck butterflies in my stomach – they’re all in my throat, and I can’t bloody breathe. Their wings stick to rings of lignin – but the lignin must be doing a shitty job, because the pink walls are definitely collapsing in. They’re definitely doing something.

Shut up, Sophie.

I take a deep breath, and pull up the stupid piece of fabric, feeling it tangle around my arms, before my head resurfaces and I slide it off my shoulders. I blink, cradling my body protectively, and then let my arms fall to my side. I still can’t breathe.

When I can bring myself to look over at her this time, those eyes are on my torso, hovering over my skin. I can feel them climbing up me, inch by inch – heat rushes all over me, like my blood is racing to keep up with her gaze – and a tightening swells in my lower body. Oh fuck. Oh, _fuck._

Her lips are parted, ever so slightly, a pea-sized spot of darkness between two pearly lips – the complexion of her face is paler than normal, so that the dark of her eyes and the red of her mouth take on a life of their own. When her gaze flickers up to meet mine, she seems to startle slightly, and then her body goes rigid and her face closes down like metal shutters. She stands up –her back is so straight, straighter than a metre stick – and abruptly leaves, barely murmuring something to her friend before whisking away through the blue doors.

I’m frozen where I stand, my heartbeat still pounding in my ears, and then I catch Nina looking at me a little too knowingly, and snap out of it, pulling off my skort and tugging on my tights and shirt like it’s no big deal. And it isn’t. It shouldn’t be.

I think about the way she looked at me, as I leave the changing rooms, as stop by the lockers, as I walk home. I think about how blatantly she was looking – at my body, at my skin, at my _everything_. I think about how warm and dark her eyes were, before they closed off – like whiskey, burning away at all that softness inside of me. Whiskey and ice.

I think it might have bothered me, if she were a boy – if she was a boy, looking at me so openly.

But she wasn’t a boy. She isn’t.

She isn’t a boy at all.

* * *

**Baz**

Sophie Snow has a purple bra.

* * *

**Sophie**

Angus’s hand is big and smooth in mine as we walk along the street, passing the assortment of frosted up window shops, faded advertisements plastered along the lengths of them. His hair is so pale it’s practically glowing in the dying light, and his other hand is shoved deep somewhere into the unknowns of his pocket. The conversation is stilted:

“How was tennis?”

Shrug. “Fine. I won a couple and drew two.”

“That’s good.”

Nod.

Pause.

“What about hockey?”

“It was…really cold.”

“Oh.”

I’m almost tempted to ask him how his classes have been going, but that question would feel a bit like giving something away. Acknowledging this space between us.

His hands are so big. How did I never notice before?

I look up at him as we lapse into more silence. He’s beautiful – everyone knows how beautiful Angus Wellbelove is. Prettiest boy in the school. I remember how neat he was to me when we first started being friends – that’s what always stuck out to me, how neat he was. He had one of those pencil cases with compartments, and all his pencils were always sharpened and arranged into a rainbow gradient. And he always smelt of aftershave, and his eyes never scrunched up when he laughed but his smiles would still be fresh and sweet and perfect. Like the first taste of cold milk in the morning. I was all morning breath, and he was all full English breakfast.

When we first got together, I loved how neat he made _me_ feel. In place, correct. It made me feel right, having a boyfriend – like I’d ticked off another box on the list of requirements for being a Happy Teenage Girl TM. And I liked having a hand to hold, and someone to smile at me when I said something funny. I liked the soft kisses – I liked the official-ness of it all. A relationship in a sealed envelope, with the stamp of universal approval. Everyone knew about me and him. We were a proper thing.

It wasn’t all that. There were other things – we would go for picnics in the park and feed the ducks, or lie back on the grass looking at clouds, or kiss, or talk about our teachers and classes. I still remember the youthful excitement of being on our first dates – of not quite knowing much about each other – the unspoken but mutually acknowledged liking – the nerves. We were so shy, and young, and silly.

I don’t feel young anymore.

Maybe that’s stupid, because I know I’m only seventeen – but it’s been decades since I was fifteen and infatuated. So much has happened inside me – I barely know myself now. I barely know Angus.

He’s so tall. When did he get so tall? When did his voice get so deep? When did the silence between us become so solid?

He looks like a walking Nicholas Sparks love interest. He looks like he belongs on the front cover, or hiding somewhere between the paper and ink like a pressed flower.

We get to my house and he sighs quietly, not quite letting go of my hand – but getting there. I don’t know why he offered to walk me home today. I had thought – I had thought that maybe he was trying to make up for the time lost over the summer. And the past few weeks.

Or something.

We slowly pull apart. I lean up to kiss his cheek quickly, and smile as genuinely as I can. He smiles back – both sides perfect symmetry. The curve of a half-moon.

Baz would never smile like that. She likes to use the left half of her mouth more, drawing it up in a lopsided smirk. When she does smile properly, her top lip sticks out a bit more than the bottom one, and sometimes you get a flash of weirdly sharp teeth.

I blink. And frown.

“See you around, Sophie.” says Angus softly, and when I look up he’s got a small, slightly sad smile on his face.

“I’ll see you,” I say, trying to smile back properly, pretending to not see the sad bit, and I step inside.

* * *

**Baz**

I sigh and wipe under my eyes, too tired to give any fucks about smearing my makeup. Latin has ceased to make any sense to me, so I pack it all up into my schoolbag, stifling a yawn. I change into my pyjamas and get ready for bed.

The whole house is silent. You’d think no one lived here, not properly – I image us all as ghosts, white sheets draped over our silent forms as we sit down to our three course dinner at the dining table – unseeing black eyes bearing into each other as we ask each other about our respective days.

_“How are you finding your new classes, Sebastiana?”_

_I’d clenched my fork between my fingers and gritted my teeth._

_“…Fine.”_

What else is there to say to each other? We have no idea what the other looks like underneath all that thousand thread count silk.

I roll over and stare at the wall. The patterning has been sapped of colour in the lack of light.

I’m all grey and the rest of the world is all yellow. Is all green and red and orange and _blue_.

And purple.

It was a pinkish sort of purple, I decide, taking a deep breath. Kind of fuchsia – melted Cadbury purple. Easter purple. Edible purple.

Her skin was all sunshine and daisies. It was all dappled golden and dipping curves – wild grass and picnic benches. It was all warm and soft – soft, soft, soft, round the edges of her, of her shoulder blades and collarbone and the small of her back – rising up over the protruding slope of her belly, weaving around her ribcage. I expected her to be a bit bigger, for some reason. I didn’t expect her to be so _soft._

My fingers twitch and I close my eyes.

Did she know what she was doing? There something defensive about the way she held herself, but something outright daring too. Only she could pull that off. Vulnerable and brave all in one. She made it look like they were the same thing.

She made it look fucking hot.

And okay – I’ll admit it – she has a great rack. I’m just saying – I’m only human, and she had the kind of cleavage that dips right in, like the beginning of a perfect love heart.

And her bra was purple.

I roll my head back as my hand slips under my shorts.

It’s that I like her or anything – she’s still a fucking mess, even if her body is like an oil painting. Her mouth and chin were stained orange from the spaghetti bolognaise she had at lunch, and she had crumbs in her hair all morning. And her face gets so red when she plays hockey – it’s like an ambulance alarm, practically glowing from across the pitch. And she stammers on her words all the time, the bloody idiot, like she never thinks about what’s she going to say first, like there’s no filter between her mouth and her stupid brain, and when she laughs it’s like she’s trying to get something out, all bubbles and bursting and loudness – in the romance books they always compare the girl’s laugh to bells, but she’s more of a set of fucking drums. And I’ll catch her gnawing on her nails, getting saliva all over her abused thumb, or chewing on her lip so furiously I’m not sure how it doesn’t burst and bleed all over her, and she has spots all over chin, and an oily forehead, and when she reads her strange books with the blue and yellow colour schemes she often turns the pages so fast they rip at the bottom, and sometimes I’ll notice that she actually scribbles around her favourite quotes, before popping the tip of the pencil back in her mouth and sucking on it. And then sometimes she’ll look up, and catch me looking and frown, or stick her tongue out at me, or flip me off – and I’ll do it right back, or raise a brow – because it pisses her off, and when she gets pissed her face gets blotchy and her eyes go on fucking fire, blue fire, and the skin around her knuckles goes bone white, and oh god, her skin, oh _god_ -

I gasp quietly as my back lifts off the bed, her name echoing inside my skull as the pulses of pleasure wash over me for a solid dozen heartbeats, and then I fall back, limp and head pounding on the mattress.

 

 Well.

I might like her a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a good easter! If you celebrate easter. Or something. Is it technically still easter? I don't know anything. At one point I had to google types of cars for this fic because I only know about fords and smart cars. 
> 
> Anyway. Thanks for reading :) comments and kudos are always welcome. (*suggestive nudging*) ((Nudge. What a great word.) (It's like nugget but stickier). (I'm leaving now))  
> Thanks. Byee.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINISHED MY EXAMS(mostly)
> 
> I promised myself that after finishing them I would get straight back to writing. But...then Captive Prince happened...and my mind...it's just been filled to the brim with gorgeous, bitchy, frigid princes and rough, rugged, ridiculously buff protagonists and cut throat politics and glorious gay sex scenes and I just...I just...
> 
> Just. 
> 
> *sighs*
> 
> Anyway, on another note I recently saw a lot of posts about Baz being half-Egyptian on tumblr, meaning that he has darker skin when he's not a vampire, and I was like oh yeah, cool, that's great, totally forgot about that-  
> yeah. I totally forgot about it. Because this is an AU. Which means Baz should have darker skin in this fic. Which means I had to go back and change tons of little descriptions.  
> So, yeah. Sorry for the inconsistency. From now on, Baz is no longer going to be described as being very pale. My bad. 
> 
> Enough rambling - chapter!

**Sophie**

It’s awful bloody weather. Murderous rain, and black, furious clouds. The kind that makes you wonder whether God has actually decided to drown all us sinners for a second round. The water pressure is actually better outside than it is in my shower at home.

I sigh and wrap two scarves around myself before heading out.

We end up staying inside for the whole of lunch, retreating to the relative safety of the library. Penny and I argue over biology homework.

“The archaea are extremophiles.”

“ _No_ , most extremophiles tend to be archaea, but the exclusivity isn’t mutual.”

“Then what are archaea?”

“You would know if you had spent less time doodling last year.”

I know she’s being playful – Penny’s always like this – berating me – but it rubs me the wrong way all the same.

“I got an A.” I say flatly.

“I helped you.”

“Seriously? I still got it myself.”

Penny falls silent, staring at the textbook in front of her. I huff, feeling loud and ungainly and irritated. Suddenly she stands, grabbing all her stuff.

“I’m going to help Enola with re-painting the notice board.” She says, not looking at me, and leaves through the open doors. I groan quietly, pulling at my hair and leaning on my elbows. I shouldn’t have snapped at her. I should have let it slide.

So many little things irritate me sometimes. Maybe it’s because I take her for granted. Maybe it’s the other way round.

The chair opposite me slides back, and I look up to see a long pale hand manuvering it. Which is attached to the last woman I want to see. Or the first. Or something.

Baz smirks at me as she sits down, placing a pile of papers onto the wooden table top. I frown by reflex, and then stop, and then look away.

I don’t even have English today. I was hoping to have a little more time before facing her again.

Her and her wicked, poisonous, appraising eyes. Eyes which make you feel like they can take a dip in your soul. Eyes which are currently glinting with careful mischief.

Everything about her feels careful. Everything about her feels uncomfortably distanced, impersonal – like she’s some tiny evil mastermind, tucked away in the forehead compartment of her robot. All that hard, shiny casing.

Well, if she can act like the changing room thing didn’t happen, so can I.

“What?” I snap, still staring at anything other than her. “What do you want?”

“Why, Snow,” she says languidly, leaning back and crossing her legs. “It’s a pleasure to see you too.”

I scowl and she laughs. That laugh makes my internal organs feel all funny. That laugh makes me feel like egg yolk.

_Crack._

“What’s got your knickers in a twist? Is it Bunce – let me guess, lover’s tiff?”

I splutter, finally meeting her gaze. It’s hard and headlong and warmer than I’d expected.

“What?!” I finally manage to get out, after a couple indignant stutters that Baz thoroughly enjoys.  “Are you mad?!”

“Oh, right.” Baz makes a show of rolling her eyes and leaning forward to rest her chin on her folded hands. I jerk back slightly. “I almost forgot – you’re _straight.”_

She’s grinning full on wickedly now, pointy teeth on full display, without even a smudge of her ruby lipstick staining the white. She looks like a vampire. She looks a cat that just got the cream off the top.

I know exactly what she’s thinking about – and she knows I know. Her eyes flit briefly to my chest, her gaze growing lazy. My heart chokes. That _can’t_ be allowed. Is this sexual harassment? I feel harassed.

“You like _boys_ , don’t you Snow?” Her expression is all kind of challenges. She sneers the word _boys._ I feel myself blush.

I fucking hate her.

She leans in even closer, and I feel stuck, caught in her gaze like a mouse in a snake’s. My skin is crawling.

She leans in so close, I can feel her breath on my ear. I can smell her perfume. I can see the length of her long gold neck, curving into the shoulder and collarbone.

“But not girls, Snow,” she murmurs, her voice all pearls and silk, and all my muscles clench up. “Surely not _girls.”_

I snap out of it and grab her shoulders, pushing her back. She falls back into her seat, stumbling slightly, and looks at me, momentarily surprised. But I’m already standing up and gathering my stuff. She raises a single brow as she watches me, and that really does it.

I lean in, grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the table. Her eyes are wide and arrogant and underneath that all – slightly fascinated? Or is that curiosity?

“It’s none of your fucking business what I like and don’t like.” I enunciate each word clearly, staring her down. I must be smoking at the edges – I’m so done with her shit.

“Oh, _Snow_ ,” she whispers, and I’m close enough that I can hear it clearly. The edges of her lips are curling up like burning paper. “Did I hit a nerve?”

I drop her wrists like they’re on fire and step back, seething. “Fuck off.” I hiss and grab my bag, before turning on my heel and leaving her and her curling, infuriating little mouth behind.

* * *

I stay late after school. Art is demanding, and seeps outside the inky lines of its printed boxes on the timetable. I sketch until my wrist gets sore and my fingers bruise and swell – I sketch until grey lead shines off of the side of my hand. If I do enough, it gets easier to breathe. If I do enough, the bubble inside me temporarily shrinks.

Art is the emotional equivalent of bleeding.

The building is a ghost town as I walk to my locker to dump off my stuff. Eerie quiet and nostalgia blue shadows lingering. I put on my rain jacket and head outside.

I pass Henry on the way. I presume he’s stayed late for a music lesson from the large trumpet case he is lugging behind him. “Hey Soph,” he says, noticing me. “Buses are cancelled.”

I groan, dragging my fingers through my hair. He shoots me an apologetic look.

“I’d offer you a lift,” he says. “But my mums got to go and pick up sis from the primary school and then-”

“It’s okay,” I tell him, grimacing. “I’ll figure it out. Thanks though.”

He nods at me and continues down the corridor.

I go outside, peering out from underneath the shelter. Maybe I can walk home. But it seems the rain has gotten heavier, and my waterproof isn’t that waterproof.

I grit my teeth, and walk along the grey pathway, hoping to bump into help. I think about calling Penny – my stomach squirms with guilt. I think about calling Angus – my stomach squirms with something else.

I sigh and pull out my phone to find my contacts when I realise it’s dead.

Honestly, fuck my life.

I’m considering punching a wall when I hear a quiet cough from behind a column. I walk along, and nearly choke when I see Baz, leaning back casually against the brick wall, smoking a cigarette and watching the rain like it’s the best thing ever.

She looks up when she sees me, and raises both her brows. Pulling out the cigarette, she exhales a billow of white smoke, and gives me an onceover.

It’s the coolest thing ever.

“Baz.” I say.

“Snow.”

“You’re not allowed to smoke.”

She looks at me with an amused expression, taking another long drag as if she has all the time in the world. And like it isn’t fucking cold out here. Maybe she is a vampire. I’m shivering.

“Where would I be if I followed all the rules?” she says, grinning, and my throat goes all warm, like I just swallowed a sip of something too hot.

“Aren’t you afraid of being caught?”

I don’t know what I’m asking. My tongue has an impulse of its own.

“Not enough, apparently.” She retorts drily, but stubs it out all the same. She looks up at me from underneath those brows. “Happy?”

I swallow and look away. I step back a bit, toeing at a rock on the ground. When I look back, she’s frowning at me.

“How come you’re still here?” I ask, and clear my throat. She shrugs, looking bored.

 “Talking to teachers.”

I doubt that somehow, since Baz is top in all her classes.

“What about you?”

I shrug and gesture vaguely behind me. I feel all loose, like a pack of elastic bands spilled over the floor.

“Art stuff.”

She nods slightly and stares back out at the rain.

“How are you getting home?” I ask suddenly. She looks back.

“I get a lift.” She says after a pause.

“Oh.”

“What about you?”

“I take the bus.”

“That’s nice.”

“Um, I guess.”

She looks amused again.

“Do you like to take the bus?”

“Sorry?”

“Do you like to take the bus?” She says, condescendingly slow this time.

“Well.” I say. “It’s just a bus.”

She rolls her eyes. A full arc. Irritation flickers at me.

“You know,” I say. “You’re fucking infuriating to talk to.”

She snorts, and leans her head back on the wall. Her eyes are doing their mad burning thing. I glare right back.

“Then why do you?” She asks.

My shoulders sag, the fight going out of me, and my gaze falls to the tip of her nose. My hands feel cold.

“I don’t know.” I say, glancing back up. “Why do you?”

Her eyes shut down a little, hardening, but she still swallows and exhales. I watch the movement of her throat.

“I don’t know.” She echoes, softly. The rain is suddenly very loud.

Baz’s nails are freshly-drowned blue. Her crescent moons are like clamshells. They were black the last time I noticed them. I wonder what compelled her to change.

I realise I’ve been holding my breath, and I gasp, inhaling sharply in the silence that has settled. Baz’s dark eyes meet mine again, and she frowns a little.

“So,” she says after a moment, glancing at her hands. “Why aren’t you on the bus?”

“They’re cancelled.” I blurt out, and she raises her brows. She’s going to get creases on her forehead once she hits her twenties at this rate.

“So how are you getting home?”

“I don’t know.” I admit, shrugging and trying not to look to put out. I run a hand through my hair and her eyes follow the movement. She frowns. “I don’t think I am.”

She’s frowning even harder now.

“Why don’t you ask Bunce?”

I shrug uncomfortably.

“I could give you a ride.”

I blink, surprised. “No.” I say too quickly. “No, I – No. Thanks.”

Both brows are up. “Too proud for a quick car drive?”

“No,” I say. “No, it’s not that – my Dad – I just.”

Just.

“Wouldn’t want your archenemy gaining the whereabouts of your home?”

I breathe out slowly.

“Yeah,” I say. “Something like that.”

I glance up to meet her eyes and quickly look away again. The way she’s slumped against the wall makes me feel like my head is spinning on my shoulders.

There’s another long silence of her taking a drag of the cigarette. Then she sighs, and drops a hand to pick at her nail varnish, back to projecting nonchalance in laser beams. I straighten up.

**“** Well,” she says, not looking up. “I suppose you could stay at mine.”

My mouth falls open.

“What? Are you insane?!”

She scowls magnificently and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Well, I don’t see where else you’re going to go.” She sneers.  “Unless you _like_ sleeping on concrete floors.”  
  
“Baz,” I say, almost gently. “You hate me.”

“ _You_ hate me.”

“It’s mutual.”

She huffs.  

“I don’t want to intrude.” I try again.

“You already do.” She mutters, but before I can ask what that even means she’s starting up again.

“Look, Vera will be here any minute now. So really, it’s your choice.” She skewers me with her glare and looks pointedly at the admittedly unappealing ground.

I roll my eyes, but wring my hands together nervously all the same. The silent staring contest stretches out between us, and then when a black Jaguar pulls up, she spins on her heel and marches out into the rain, pulling open a sleek door and slipping in. The car dawdles. I sigh, and then follow her without a word.

* * *

**Baz**

Why did Vera have to drive the jaguar?

**Sophie**

The driver – _Vera_ – doesn’t say a word, or even acknowledge my presence. For a moment I’m worried that she actually hasn’t noticed that I’m here at all, and will dump me half-way there onto the side of the road.

The car smells new, and also like expensive perfume. It’s got fucking leather on every surface. With silver stripes. And I’m pretty sure there’s some kinda seat warming system going on.

Baz just sits there rigidly, elbow resting on the door ridge, staring out the window. Her hair is slightly damp, and her bottom lip is extra curled because it’s being pushed to the side by her golden knuckle. Like a drooping rose petal. Rose petals and bones.  

This is stupid. This is so, so stupid. She’s probably going to murder me. She’ll murder me, and then she’ll roast my naked body over a spit and serve it up to her probably equally fucked up family and they’ll all have a ten minute debate over which wine to accompany me with.  

_I’m thinking a sparkling white, or maybe a light rose. What do you think, father dear?_

I am so fucked.

* * *

The drive is about thirty minutes long – the rain stops after twenty, after we’ve outrun the clouds. I’m surprised, but I don’t know why I’m surprised, because if Baz did want to murder me it makes sense that she’d take me somewhere deserted. But this deserted is just so beautiful – corner shops roll out into long, winding fields, which crumple up into little paper hills, in the distance. The sun is low in the sky now, heavy pink weighing down the slopes and clinging to the grains of corn in the fields, which rise up proudly from the ground in rows of symmetry, like an army. I imagine them donned with tiny shields.

I’m so tired.

The pink – _maroon_ – glows, and sinks itself into a roasted orange, which laps at the green slopes of mountains. In between is all shadows. Baz rolls down the window, and I smell dirt and evening and cereal smells. I lean my cheek against the side of the door and watch her hair flutter around her jaw.

I must have closed my eyes at some point, because when I open them again Baz is tapping my shoulder. She isn’t frowning. Her forehead looks so bright, like the skin of a bronze statue.  

“Snow,” she’s saying. “Get up. We’re here.”

“Baz,” I say. “You’re not frowning.”

She frowns.

I pick myself up, yawning, and stretch my arms before getting out the car. When I look up, I am confronted with a vast mass of ivory walls. It’s a practically a castle.

This is so, so stupid.

Vera’s got the boot up, and is disappearing into the house – Baz grabs my bag, looks at me, then drops it on the ground.

“Fuck you.” I say.

The corner of her mouth slants up slightly, and she flips me off before also disappearing in through the open doors.

Those doors are too tall. Why are they so tall?

I bend over and pick my bag off the ground, brushing the gravel off the fabric. I hesitate, gnawing on my lip as I glance back over at the monster of a building. Maybe I should just run for it.

“Snow!” Baz’s slim figure reappears to lean indolently against the door frame. “Are you coming or not?”

She catches me eyeing the doors again.

“Fucking hell,” she says. “The house doesn’t bite.”

“Yes, but you do.” I mutter, sighing as I brush past her. She laughs, but by the time I’ve looked over at her it’s already flattened back into a suppressed smile.

“Come on.” She tells me, walking down the hall. The heels of her shoes click on marble. “Wait here.”

She knocks on a glistening wooden door, and waits three seconds before easing it open, one hand on the brass handle.

“Mother,” she says, stepping in. “I brought a friend to stay over.”

The door clicks closed behind her, and a muffled voice replies. I can hear Baz’s voice getting more and more frustrated, and then suddenly the door slams open again, nearly smacking me in the face, and Baz is there, grabbing my arm and pulling me along.

“We’ll be upstairs!” she snaps, and it is only once she has dragged me to the top of the grandiose staircase that she blinks out of her stony expression and glances down at the slim brown fingers curled above my elbow. I watch her as she almost flinches and lets go. Our eyes meet for a brief moment, and then she exhales and seems to calm down.

“My room is down at the end.” She says, and I scurry after her as she stalks off again.

“Is everything alright?” I ask.

“Just dandy, Snow.”

My nostrils flare.

“Is it ok? Me staying here, I mean. I can go. If you need –  want me to.”

Baz looks at me incredulously, pausing with one hand reaching out for the door handle.

“Where the hell would you go?”

I grin, tipping my head to the side.

“The woods.” I say. Am I still tired? Maybe.

Baz is really frowning now. She’s staring at me. And then her expression slowly lightens up, like a sprinkling of fairy dust, and she tries to raise one brow. The corners of her mouth have gone all thin the way they do when she’s trying not to laugh.

“The woods?”

I nod, fighting the urge to giggle hysterically. She looks down at her hand on the door handle.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” She says quietly, then purses her lips and shakes her head a little, stepping into her room.

The first thing I notice is the bed. The huge mass of black velvet sits right in the centre of the room, with wooden creatures slithering up the posters. When I look closer I realise they’re mermaids, long hair entangling with pointed tails, round breasts sticking out proudly, expressions half-torn in anguish or anger. Exotic flowers bloom across the wall paper on the back wall, and a large window is covered in a matching curtain. Small cards adorn one corner. I cross over without thinking to get a better look.

_“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”_ I read aloud, and look back to where she is leaning against the door frame, watching me with guarded eyes. I put my hands in my pockets.

“Did you do the calligraphy yourself?” I ask.

She nods once, still watching me.

“Figures,” I mutter under my breath, and her lips quirk.

I look around awkwardly for a moment, and she steps into the room. Slowly. Like _I’m_ something to be careful around.

“You can sit down, you know.” She tells me. Her voice is all black coffee and sugar. It’s all dark chocolate sauce dripping off a loaded spoonful.

She makes me feel like an open mouth.

She’s gesturing to the bed.

I swallow. And sit straight down onto the patch of floor I was standing on.

She laughs, throwing her head back, eyes wide as if she wants to roll them. And then she regains composure with that perfect control of hers, and half-shrugs before easing herself down onto the floor opposite me.

“Alright then.” she’s saying, not quite looking at me.

I get stuck between a smile and a grimace, and clasp my hands on my lap. I smooth my skirt out. And then worry that I’m being too obvious, though I’m not sure what about.

She rests her hands palm down on the carpet, and when I look up she’s staring at me. She glances back down momentarily, sooty lashes black against her cheeks, to pick at the carpet. It’s flawless. There’s nothing to pick at. Is she nervous? Is she capable of that? Am _I_ nervous? Why?

Why is she always making me nervous?

“So, Sophie Snow…” she says, mouth tightening around the “oh” sound, drawing it out. Eyes on me. “What do you like to do?”

* * *

**Baz**

She blinks those blue eyes at me, making a confused spasm with her brows. Her mouth is hanging open. It’s always hanging open. It makes her look young, and frayed, and loose. It makes her lips look bigger.

“What?” She asks.

“You know,” I roll my eyes for effect. “Hobbies. Pastimes. Activities revealing of your darkest desires. Anything you like.”

She stutters, fiddling with her skirt, eyes everywhere. She takes up so much space, even though she’s a couple inches shorter than me. She pulls everything in, in with her thirst to see it all, taste it all, swallow it all down – and unspools herself out. A mess of paint. The world isn’t her canvas – it’s her mixing palette. It’s her creative process. It’s her recycled thoughts.

It’s hers, period.

“Why do you want to know?” She asks, eventually deciding on suspicion. I narrow my eyes and lean against the bed frame.

“We have time to kill. And believe it or not, but despite all our shared duelling and antagonistic angst, I don’t actually know very much about you.”

She frowns, but leans forward. “You want to get to know me?”

I pretend to think about it for a moment.

“Yes.”

“You…want to be my friend?”

Her face is exaggeratedly incredulous. I raise a brow.

“I wouldn’t push it that far.”

She breaks into an exasperated grin, looking around as if to search for something to throw at me. Then seems to remember she’s in my house. She probably thinks I would break her fingers before letting her break any of my stuff. She wouldn’t be wholly wrong.

“Well,” she says. “I…like…music.”

“Music.” I deadpan. She frowns again.

“I like to listen to it.”

“Everyone does.”

She sighs mightily. Stares longingly at the door.

“Alright.” I say. “What kind of music?”

She’s fiddling with the sleeves of her cardigan now. Sometimes, in class, she gnaws on them. It’s the grossest thing ever – it must be some kind of horror story bacterial jungle.

“I don’t know. Like. Emeli Sande? Louder stuff, too.”

“Emeli Sande.” I echo.

“You heard any of hers?” She’s leaning back against the bed frame too, now. Also, towards me.

I shake my head. “Don’t think so.”

“Play some.”

I raise both brows. “Are you trying to order me around?”

She quirks her mouth up, eyes filling with pure cheek. “Do you prefer to be in control?” She asks, voice the image of innocence. I roll my eyes and reach for my phone, cheeks hot as I watch the Spotify app load. Her eyes are so blue on me. They make me feel like I’m breathing out bubbles.

Breathing out bubbles. Drinking her in.

The app opens and I hand over the phone to her, with the search page already open. Her eyebrows go up, but she shakes her head and doesn’t say anything.

“What?” I say.

“Didn’t think you trusted me so much.”

“I don’t.” I hear myself say. “I’d slice you in half before you could think of hitting the home page.”

She almost smiles.

I drop my head back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. When I lift it back up she’s looking at me and chewing on her lip.

“What?” I say.

She hesitates. “I don’t know…if I want to.”

“If you want to what?”

She shrugs. “Show you my music.”

“Christ sake, Snow. It’s music, not a diary.”

She breathes out heavily through her nose, and then deliberates a little longer before putting on a song. Its rich rhythm starts to fill our little space. All bells. I stare at a freckle on her nose.

_“You won’t find him drinking at the table…”_ The singer’s round voice bounces over the ringing. _“Rolling dice and staying out til’ three-ee..”_

“Let me guess,” I murmur. “This is the most impersonal song on the album.”

She grins and rolls her head back fully, closing her eyes for a moment to enjoy it. Her lips are following the words instinctively. Her throat is exposed. I don’t how she can go from so uncomfortable to so nonchalant so quickly.

“Maybe.” She admits.

I tamper down a smile – but my face doesn’t feel like a smile. It feels like it’s contorting, twisting in a multitude of directions, and I just don’t know how to get it under control.

Control. Is this what happens without it? Where did it all go?

I swear this girl is such a mess it’s like trying to sit next to a tornado. She inhales, and I realise I’m leaning in.

“Show me a personal one.” I whisper, and I almost don’t think she’s heard me until she opens her eyes and squints at me. Her eyes stick to mine, and she swallows. It’s loud in the open room.

She sits up suddenly and I snap back, startled. Her eyes are so big. We both freeze, for a moment.

And then she smiles – more with her cheeks than her lips. “Why don’t you tell me something you like?” She says.

I lean back even further. I frown.

“Why?” I say flatly. “Do _you_ want to be _my_ friend?”

“I’m pushing as far as I can.” She retorts, square teeth on display as she grins. Half of them are wonky. She needs braces.

My heartbeat is in my ears, and it feels like my hair is trying to climb back inside my skin and scalp. My fingertips tickle. Is she flirting with me? It feels a little like she’s flirting with me.

Why do girls always flirt to kill?

“Well,” I say. “As it happens, I listen to music too.”

“Amazing,” she says. “What next? You brush your teeth with toothpaste? Could we, perchance, be breathing the same air?”

“Wrong again.” I breathe. “I brush my teeth with mercury.”

She smiles with her cheeks and lips at the same time. I feel like dying.

“Wow.” She relaxes back against the bed. “If I had to guess over, I would have said liquid gold.”

I realise I’m smiling again. I can’t stop. It actually kind of hurts.

“Only on Sundays.” I whisper.

“Baz.”

“Yes?”

“Play me a song.”

She hands me the phone. I squeeze it in my palm, sliding my thumb over the home button.

“I’m not your friend.” I say.

“Okay.”

“This isn’t us becoming friends.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Please play me your evil, evil songs, my dark-haired, pointy-elbowed enemy.”

“God,” I gasp. “You’re such an asshole.”

She laughs.

I open it and stare at my playlist for five minutes. Most of my songs are about sex. Or death. From the outside looking in, I seem like a really horny emo.

“I’ve decided to not play you anything at all. I don’t need your judgement.” I declare after a moment, and brush my hair away from my face.

“What? I played you mine!”

“And I judged you.”

“It’s okay if you like weird stuff. I’m expecting it. I’m waiting for the weird to slap me in the face.”

I raise my brows as she rambles. She catches my eyes and glances down, sheepish.

Then powers through it, like a true protagonist.

“Is it Alt-J? Or Halsey? I bet it’s Halsey. You seem like a Halsey kind of gal.”

“Snow,” I say, tipping my head to one side. “Did you just say gal?”

“Look,” she says. “Point is, I’m ready. Hit me with it.”

She’s blushing. I try, and fail to not smile.

“Halsey isn’t that weird.” I berate her. “You’ve been living much too safely.”

“No she isn’t.” she agrees. “She’s wonderful, really. Excellent stuff. Especially when she’s playing, out loud, through some phone speakers.”

I breathe out slowly, feeling the rush of my pulse. All the blood in me is rioting. The cells have tiny spears, digging into my skin. I’m scared they’ll dig right out.

“Halsey isn’t that weird.” I say again. “Halsey is a nice, comfortable kind of weird. Edgy. Real weird should make you uncomfortable.”

“Give me your weird.” she says. Her eyes are very bright.

“What if I’m normal?” I murmur, staring down at my playlist as I scroll, the songs flying past too fast to read. “What if I disappoint you?”

“Give me your normal.” she says.

I pause, the pad of my thumb hovering over the song. I swallow. I bite my lip. When I glance up, her eyes are on my phone. Lips slightly curled.

I press down.

Sippy Cup. Melanie Martinez.

I can’t look at her while the song plays, so I stare out the window. It’s already gotten dark outside, violet panels pressing against the glass of the window. I almost want to stand up and draw the curtains, to keep them at bay. Away from the sound and space of the room. Away from the ruler’s length between us. Away from her.

The song comes to a finish, and when I look over at her she opens her eyes. Smiles.

“I like it.” she says.

“Do you?”

“It’s not what I expected.”

“Halsey?”

She shrugs contentedly. “Like Halsey.”

“Daintier.”

“Sort of. Sweeter. Too sweet. So sweet it’s gross.”

“You like it?”

“I like it.” she says. Her voice is softer than cake on the roof of a mouth.

I nod, for no apparent reason. I could lick icing off her throat.

There’s a knock on the door, and I scramble to get up, running my hand through my hair. I feel like I’ve been walked in on half-dressed when I open the door. Daphne looks at me, expression blank. My throat tightens.

“I brought you dinner.” She says. “You missed it.”

I nod. “Thank you.” I say, polite as ever, and reach out for the plates and cutlery she hands me. Her eyes have grown a bit softer. Guilty.

I know it was mostly Father’s fault – his decision, his idea. But she still sided with him. She still didn’t stop him. She still told me: “Baz, it’s not fair to the other girls.”

Like it’s fair to me. Like I’m a freak.

Like boys were ever fair to them anyway.

“Vera is bringing sheets for the sofa.” she says, nodding towards it. I nod. Whatever. She stares at me for a moment longer, and then steps away. I shut the door.

When I turn back, Snow’s big blue eyes are blinking up at me like a deadly mashup of Betty Boop and Aphrodite. I scowl down at her. Her stomach rumbles in a surprisingly accurate imitation of a humpback whale’s mating call.

“Hungry?” I ask coolly, and her cheeks get blotchy.

I hand her her plate and a set of cutlery, and when I look up she’s staring at my right cheek, looking like she still wants to say something. Freckled skin. Round, open mouth. I bite my lip hard and feel something familiarly vicious rise at the back of my throat.

“Don’t fight it too hard, Snow.” I drawl, nodding to the meal in her lap. “Even if it is poisoned, you’ll probably starve to death if you don’t.”

She shoots me a glare, spearing a potato with her fork, and I make a show of my now well-rehearsed eye-roll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think :) Constructive criticism is welcome.


	9. Chapter 8

**Sophie**

I fall asleep in period three. Ms.McAteer  ends up making me read out my answer to a question in front of the class, and my answer is obviously only half-complete, so I end up trying to make it up as I go, which is stupid because I lose all my words and scatter all my grammar and she gives me a detention. So.

Art is no better. I get paint all over myself instead of on the page and what is on the page is absolute trash, and not just the regular internalised trash but the externalised trash too, because when Miss. Hamilton comes over to look at my colour study of a glass of water on its side she just frowns.

I chose a glass of water for my starting point – we’re all supposed to choose something ordinary and _run._

The glass is on its side, but the water is still inside it as if it was the right way up. Because that’s how things are sometimes. That’s how we are.

It almost makes sense, when you first look at it. Almost feels right. It’s only the intellectual side that protests.

I don’t know. All the reflections are a bitch. And the paint is too thick. And my water is already muddy, again.

I groan and rub my hands over my face. And then freeze. And then groan louder as I wash all the paint off my face.

Penny frowns when she sees me in the cafeteria. I walk over, swallowing, and sit down.

“Hey,” I breathe.

“You’ve got paint in your hair.” She says.

“Do I?” I reach up for the fluffy parts that hover around my forehead. “Where?”

She taps on the left of her head.

“Is it gone?”

“No. More to the side-”

“Okay?”

“No. Yes. There.”

“Thanks.” I look down at my apple.

“Did you get my text?” She asks me. Her face is hard to read, and her eyes are flat behind her glasses, but I’m overcome with a rush of affection for her. I just don’t know how to express it. I just don’t know what words she wants.

She’s regarding me – all familiar, so familiar. From her emotions to her clothes. From her head to her toes. I love her so much. She’s my _best friend._

I love her so much. I just can’t reach her.

“No,” I mumble around a mouthful of apple mush. “My phone’s dead.”

Pause.

“Did you get home okay?”

I swallow, and look up at her.

“Yes,” I say, feeling a little queasy.

“Were the buses running?” She’s surprised. She’s relaxing.

“Um,” I say. “No.”

“Oh.” She frowns.

“I…crashed at Baz’s.”

“Baz’s.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek.

“The new girl?”

“Yeah.”

“…You could have crashed at mine. You know.”

“I…my phone was dead.”

“Couldn’t you have borrowed hers?”

I frown. Anything I say is a foot into the minefield.

She sighs. “Nevermind. Let’s just – whatever. Nevermind.”

“I’m sorry.” I whisper. “I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine.” She says. “It’s not a big deal.”

And it’s not. Penny changes the topic to school work. We laugh. We move on.

* * *

Me and Baz didn’t actually have breakfast with the rest of her family, thank god. When I’d woken up she was already fully dressed and throwing a pillow at me. (“Get the fuck up, Snow. You’re not paying rent.”) I’d refrained from snapping back at her because my voice goes all croaky first thing, and well, morning breath. She was kinda close.

She’d brought me up a bowl of cereal (Bran. I’d tried to look grateful. Really.) and a glass of juice, which tasted like it’d been freshly pressed. In ten minutes we were back in the car. (“You couldn’t have cut me some slack, could you.”) But she’d passed me a jam doughnut across the leather seats, which was both really annoying and also kinda. Nice.

Or should I say, _sweet._

I try not to think about it too much on the walk home. Which is to say, I think about it a lot. Too much. Much too much.

The house is freezing when I get in. I don’t know if Dad is even in. I don’t know if he even noticed that I didn’t come home.

Which is to say, I do know. Because he never notices.

I check the fridge. Three beers, out-of-date milk, and a packet of carrots. I grab a carrot, rinse it in the sink, and head upstairs. I close my door tightly behind me, and drop my bag beside my desk. I sit in my chair, a lone island in the sea of crisp packets and unwashed mugs and clothes of dubious cleanliness – and take a deep breath. Close my eyes.

_Baz wore the shortest, most ridiculous pair of pyjama shorts in all the history of short and ridiculous pyjama shorts to bed._

I lean forward and open up my laptop.

Outside I can hear kids yelling in the background, and the sounds of car rumbling too fast over the road. Dull light trickles through the gap in my curtains, dripping white onto the ground. I tap my index finger against the metal. Slowly, move my hands over to the keyboard.

The first thing I type in is:

_how to tell if you’re gay_

I bounce my knee as the results load, feeling as though I’m about to be walked in on at any minute. The page loads –“ _R u gay quiz!!”_ and “ _gurls only lesbian test 100% accuracte”_ and “ _Signs That You Aren’t Straight_ ” by Cosmopotalian.com  jump into my eyes. I blink.

God. Oh, god.

Ten minutes of shitty irrational pop quizzes later – each with an answer different to the previous – I snap my laptop closed and push back, my chair skidding a few measly inches on the dust-ridden carpet. I gnaw on my lip, and then remember my carrot, and gnaw on that instead.

I’m not gay. I know I’m not gay (despite what three of the tests said) (not that they count) (I don’t not shave because I’m a homosexual, internet. I don’t shave because I can’t afford a new razor). I’m not gay. If I was gay, I would already know. I would already feel different. I wouldn’t be here.

Here. With a stupid ponytail and unshaved legs and a raw carrot in my mouth. I would be different. I would be something else.

I’m not gay. I’m just – me. I’m just _this._

And girls are just – Baz is just –

They’re just a something. Just a something. Not a whole thing.

I tug on my hair bobble and get in the shower.

I’m not gay, I think, rubbing in shampoo as the water trickles over my back, my shoulders. But if I were –I’d feel so alone right now.

* * *

“Fuck.” I say, wrinkling my nose as I lean back from the cardboard cup. “Fuck.”

“What?” says Penny, leaning over the table and peering into the drink as I pull off the lid.

“It tastes like – ” I gesture wildly with my hands. “Nothing. It tastes like nothing with a hint of coconut.”

Angus frowns from the other side of the table. Penny takes a sip and frowns as well.

“This tastes like shit,” she says.

“I know. I paid four pounds for this.”

“Why didn’t you just get the hot chocolate?” asks Angus.

I look away. “I should’ve.”

“Told ya,” says Penny. She grins at me.

I pick at a napkin while they finish their coffees. They talk about classes, and I stare out the inked-up window, the surface sticky with fingerprints.

“Sophie,” says Penny, and my head snatches up. She’s looking at me, a smile melting from her face. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” I say, and take a sip of my coconut latte, even though it tastes like shit.

“I’m going to the bathroom. You need?”

“I’m okay,” I say, and she nods, hopping off the stool and disappearing into the forest of coffee tables and chatter.

“Hey,” says Angus after a long moment. He sounds awkward. I look over to where he’s holding his cup and staring at the ceiling. His golden hair is getting longer. “Sophie.”

“Yeah?” I say. I chew on my lip.

“Look, I – I don’t want to – well, just – I might as well just say it.”

“What?” I say, blinking.

“I think we should break –up.”

I look at him. He’s looking at me. I blink. Blink again.

“Um,” I say.

He draws his lips into a line and shifts his brows a little. His expression is flat – logical, as if we’re sorting a business deal, or planning a group project.

“Um,” I say again. “What?”

He sighs and looks up at a point slightly left to my gaze. I stare at him.

“It’s not a big deal, really.” He says. “I mean, that sounds – but Sophie, it’s not like you really care. We’re over. We’ve been over for a while. I’m just the one who’s finally saying it.”

I blink. “But.” I say. “But I thought we – we’re good together.”

He shakes his head, like he’s already made up his mind. And he has. I don’t know why I feel upset that he made this decision without me.

“Sophie,” he says. “It’s not real. We’re not real. And I – I want real. I feel more real on my own.”

“What does that even?”  I say. “Why do you keep saying that word?”

He seems to be trying not to roll his eyes. It pisses me off.

“I can’t believe,” I say. “That you’re breaking up with me in a coffee shop.”

“Sophie,” he says. “Come on. You’re being –“

“What?” I snap. “What am I being?”

“You’re being silly.” he says, in a measured voice, and I feel like I’m a child being scolded by an adult.

He pushes back from the table and stands up, picking up his coat. “I have to go.” He says. “I’ll miss my train.”

He looks down at me, but I’m staring past him into the street. “I am sorry.” He adds, pausing, and I take a deep breath to resist the urge to flip him the bird. Then he walks out of Starbucks and leaves me there, with the table full of empty cups and circular stains.

 Penny comes back to find me with my jaw clenched, ripping my cup into messy shreds. She frowns.

“Where’s Angus?” she asks.

“He broke up with me.” I say, tearing off another strip.

There’s a silence. And then – “Oh,” she says, and then sits down. I can feel her looking at me.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I inhale and put down the cup, looking up at her. I shrug.

She seems to be wanting to be saying something, but holds back, looking at me awkwardly. I sigh, and lean back.

“Do you want to go?” I ask, and she nods and grabs her coat.

Outside, she links her arm through mine as we walk, over sleeves bunching together. She used to always do this when we were younger. It makes me soften up, and then it makes me miss how easy it was when we were young, how easy it was to do link arms and talk about nonsense things until everything was small, and everything was our size. Now, buildings are all big, and so are other people, so are each other. We’re both so big now.

“Do you want to get ice cream?” she says. I nod and we head over into the shopping centre, where the woman with the red hair and the white apron loads green and pink scoops onto fancy cones. We head back outside and sit on the stone steps, the ones at the top of the street that let you see all the way down it, eyes flitting into every open shop, soaring over every dark head. Everyone is just a bustling movement of dismal colour, fumbling over each other unfocusedly. I reach out with a hand, and suddenly it’s just as big as all the buildings.

Penny rests her head on the my shoulder, and I lean into her. The sun is beginning to descend over the skyline, the sharp points of the rooftops stabbing into its bulging heat like a fork into an egg yolk. Yellow spills over the clouds, running along their silver linings.

“Are you sad about it?” Penny says in a small voice. She smells like pine and childhood. I love her most when she’s being soft like this, when she’s being gentle with me, even though sometimes it feels like she thinks I’m weaker than her.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly, trying not to shrug. She takes a lick of the ice cream, pink dribbling down the cone in a sugary ribbon. I lean in and take a mouthful of mine, the mint stinging at the corners of my lips. I try not to get any on her hair.

“Do you love him?” she asks.

“No.” I say after a moment. “I – no.”

She sits up then and looks at me. “I always thought that maybe…” I look over at her. A line appears between her brows.

“…You two were better as friends.”

I swallow, and lean my head against her shoulder. She pats my cheek with her hand.

“Maybe,” I murmur into her coat. “I’m just really bad at this kind of stuff.”

She hums at strokes my hair. “You’re just messy.” she says. “You’re just messy, and Angus, well – “

“ – he’s Prince Charming.” I say. “And I’m like, a tree in the background.”

She laughs and I snort a little too, the sound bouncing down the steps. The crowds are thinning out.

“Don’t.” she says, her voice still warm from laughing. “Seriously Soph, it’s alright. It’s alright, okay?”

I close my eyes, feeling the remaining sun slide over my skin in auburn tones. We’re so warm.

“Okay.” I say. “Alright.”

* * *

Detention after school. I don’t even think it’s that bad honestly – just picking up rubbish around the grounds for an hour with a bin bag. At least it’s not inside, or under supervision – and besides, I like this time of day. When the sun is like this, all low, slanted, and everything is just getting a bit grey – but soft grey, warm jumper grey – and all the trees get really defined, you know, I just feel really good.

It’s like reading a book – the moment before the ending part is always the best. You’ve just got to plough through the build-up and plotty stuff to get to it.

Worth it. Always worth it.

I lean down and pick up a glass bottle, and then realise it’s an empty vodka bottle, and slowly put it back down. I don’t really want to deal with the stress if the school realises kids are drinking on grounds. Or whatever.

I straighten up and peer around to see if there’s any more crap lying about. They get suspicious if the bag isn’t at least half full – sometimes people just stuff them full of leaves. Or swap them with the full bin bags in the playground. But you’re kinda fucked if you get caught.

I’m reaching for an apple core when a movement catches my eye and I look up. I blink. Baz is sitting on one of the circular brick walls that surround each of the trees, head tilted back and a book in her hands, a cigarette balanced between two fingers. She lifts her head and meets my gaze. I step over.

“Snow.” she says, glancing me up and down.

“Do you literally just stay behind every day?” I blurt. Her lips aren’t red today. Just normal and pouty – flat bits of dryer skin make up her bottom lip. Her hair is falling into her face.

She shrugs, uncrossing her legs and leaning back. “I try my best.”

“Oh.” I linger awkwardly for a moment, fiddling with the thin plastic between my fingers. She’s watching me, her expression hard to read.

“Christ sake,” she says after a moment, breathing out through her nose. “Just sit down, why don’t you?”

I sit down, gingerly dropping the bag on the floor and shifting on the bricks, acutely aware of the half-metre space between us. I want to move closer to her, and further away – all the time. She’s got me going all kinds of directions.

I glance at her face and she’s frowning down at her book slightly, eyes fluttering slightly towards me. I cross my legs and lean in.

“What are you reading?” I ask.

She swallows and frowns deeper, but holds up the book cover towards me. I peer.

“The Bees,” I read out. “Carol Ann Duffy.”

I look at her face again. “You read poetry?”

She raises a brow – it’s still maddening, it’s always going to be completely and utterly maddening – but somehow smiles at the same time, which makes warm ice cream-y feelings happen in my stomach.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she says, still smiling. “I don’t actually spend all my time doing posh evil things.”

“Um,” I say. “Poetry is pretty posh.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “You probably think shopping lists are deep.”

“I like that you think I actually use shopping lists.”

She grins properly then, with all her teeth. It’s terrifying.

“Do you prefer it, then?” I murmur, looking away. The tarmac is scattered with sticks and honey sunshine.

“To shopping lists?” I can still hear the curve in her voice.

I scowl. “To proper books.”

She seems to think about it for a long moment, and when I look back her lips are rolled up.  She pulls on a piece of black hair.

 “Yes.” She decides. “No. Poets tend to be more to the point about their message than authors. A lot of books are just self-involved waffle.”

“I like waffle.” I say. “Isn’t writing more about an experience than a message, anyway?”

She looks over at me.

“Mm,” she says, leaning forward slightly. “Potentially.”

“I don’t read to learn things.”  I say. “I know that maybe I should, or whatever – but I don’t read for the sake of educating myself. I read to feel good.”

“You read for the feel of it, not the thought?”

I think about that. Her hands are bony.

“I guess,” I say. “That to me, thought is feeling.”

She nods, as if more to herself than me.

“Or,” she says, eyes sparkling. “Feeling is thought.”

I realise, in a sudden rush, that she’s having fun.

“Does it matter which way round it goes?” I ask, smiling and leaning back onto the tree. Her eyes trace the length of my throat.

“What comes first?” she murmurs, and I almost close my eyes. I force them back open. “The chicken or the egg?”

“The egg.”

She bites back a smile, glancing away for a moment. “For you,” she says, clearing her throat. “Do you think first, or feel first?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

She purses her lips and then looks down at her page. There’s a moment of deliberation. The pages of her book look so soft and pale they remind me of lilies.

“Okay.” she says, and clears her throat. “Listen.”

I stare at where her neck meets her chin.

“Round I go,” she begins, reading off of it. “the moon, a diet of light, sliver of pear – wedge of lemon, slice of melon, half an orange, silver onion;”

She pauses suddenly, looking at me, frowning, clearly deliberating.

“Go on.” I say. “Keep going.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it and looks down. She takes a breath.

“Your human sound falling through space, childbirth’s song, the lover’s song, the song of death.”

She looks up at me again, and a flash of vulnerability passes over her face before she frowns.

“What was the question?” I ask after a moment.

She shakes her head.  Swallows. “Do you know now?”

I shrug. I realise I’m smiling, just a bit.

“Know what?”

“Which comes first?”

“No.” I say. “Why would I know now?”

She breathes out, letting her forehead lean forward to rest against the tree. “Snow,” she says. “You were supposed to pay attention to how you felt.”

I breathe in. “Oh.” The sound comes out all soft. Ready to fall through space. I’m perched on the edges of a black hole.

A car pulls up in the car park, wrenching us back to earth. Baz jumps to her feet, away from me. She flicks her cigarette onto the ground, and then starts to walk away, leaving it still smoking.

“Oh,” I say again, sitting up, taken by surprise.

She keeps walking, steadily, one foot in front of the other, and pulls open the car door with a deliberate tug. I stand up.

She glances up at me at the last second, eyes dark through the reflective wind shield. There’s a moment of hesitation, a pause, but then her eyes warm for one quick moment and her lips pull up, slowly, into a precisely perfected smirk. I feel my own mouth lift to helplessly mirror hers, for a couple bright seconds, and then the contact is lost.

I look away as the car rolls off into the distance. Her cigarette is still there. Dazed, I reach for the bin bag, pausing before pressing my foot down onto it. I glance over at the disappearing car, but it’s gone by now. The stretch of road is greyer than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't actually find my copy of The Bees rn, but I'll try and find it next chapter and tell you guys which poem those lines are from then. Did anybody else have to study Carol Ann Duffy for English? My favourite was Mrs.Midas. Also, Havisham. I really love reading about angry women. 
> 
> Anyways. Shoutout to anyone else who spent weeks doing every single "am i gay" quiz available on the internet. They're all terrible- don't listen to them. Right now I'm going through a thing where I like to read those "when/how did you know you were gay" threads on like, emptyclosets or whatever. They're probably more useful if you're questioning your sexuality. :)
> 
> I'M GOING TO TRY AND START UPDATING MORE FREQUENTLY AS WELL. so. stay tuned. and leave a comment if you like. byee


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being away for so long! I don't really have any excuse. I mean. I started writing a new piece about a gay-dragon-taming-village. I guess that's an excuse. 
> 
> Also, I super fucking regret calling chapter 1 the epilogue. Now every single chapter is one behind and just..
> 
> Bleh. Here's my 2k of trash. Enjoy.

**Baz**

Sometimes when I get lonely, or strange, I like to do my makeup. When I was younger, when I first discovered Daphne’s set of lipsticks and mascaras and expensive eyeshadow palettes – the kind with excessively artistic labels for different shades and gold rimming around the heavy mirrors – I used to lock myself in the bathroom for hours, and put it all on. It’s some kind of therapy.

Start at the base. Work up the layers. You want a clean canvas.

You want your flaws to disappear. And then, slowly, everything else. Until what you’re looking at in the mirror is some other women, is some pretty girl with big eyes and a cocky smile, and you like feeling dressed. All your expressions have clothes.

I tip my angled brush, dragging the thick black across the wrinkles of my eyelid. I don’t care which way they naturally want to slope. I make the rules now.

I highlight all the parts of my faces that I’m supposed to hide under brown, and add bronzer to all the parts that were supposed to stand out. White in my crease. Black-blue on the brow bone, and inner corners of my eyes. I don’t want to waken them up. I want to close them right down.

I want to turn what’s familiar inside out.

I think about stopping once my eyeliner wing has already extended past the tip of my brows, and then I tilt my head, and keep going. Another layer. Another.

Until it takes up all of my eyelids.  Until gazes keep tripping over the contrast. Until my eyeballs are set deep into my skull. I blink into the mirror.

I’m a freak. I’m all alien. Unknown.

It’s refreshing.

I stare at myself for a long moment, and then quietly tie my hair back and start removing. Methodical. In place. Climbing back down to normality, one step at a time.

It’s important to practice insanity, I decide as I wipe at the ink over my eye with a cotton pad. It’s important to know how to go mad sometimes, how to push your comfort zones, to test out and taste the strangest flavours of your mind. You’d be surprised at how much absurdity there is in being sensible. At how much of reality is slightly more organised dreaming. Less glossy.

You’d be surprised at how much there is to hide. At how much of you lives in the shadows of yourself.

Whatever. There are easy and ugly ways to live. Your choice.

The shower water turns black at my feet .

Fiona comes round to visit. Two minutes after she arrives – flowers for Daphne, a frown and some whiskey for Father, hugs and sweeties for the little ones – she’s already whisking me away to the shopping centre. To “treat me to some new clothes”, and spend “quality time with her niece” – which really means to chain-smoke cigarettes opposite me while we scout out the weirdest buskers in town, and to munch on cheap pizza while she bitches about the patriarchy and taxes.

We have a real connection, my Aunt and I.

“Christ, Sebastiana,” she says, huffing out a cloud of white smoke. “Men are terrible. Listen to me: do not consort with them. Complete and utter fuckers. God might think giving us multiple orgasms makes up for the catastrophe of dealing with their shit – but let me tell you, he is wrong. Nothing.” she inhales deeply, jabbing at the air with the glowing tip. “Nothing. Nothing makes up for it.”

I suck on a pepperoni slice, my voice dry. “That’s what I told your brother. Don’t think it was the right branch of argument to persuade him of the pros of lesbianism – but you know. Worth a try.”

She rolls her eyes at me, and lights another cigarette whilst balancing the other one judiciously between her teeth. “You’re a smartass, kid.”

I look off down the distance of the High Street, my eyes catching on the roseate yellow hues of sun glinting off shop windows, red sale signs barely visible behind the glass.

When I look back, Fiona is watching me through grey rimmed eyes, rubbing the cigarette between two fingers. Back and forth. Back and forth.  

“How’s the new school?” she asks after a moment, lifting her gaze from me and bringing the paper tip to her lips.

I shrug. And then tighten my shoulders. She’s been rubbing off on me.

“Could be worse.” I say.

“Mm.”

“How’s the job?”

“Fucking awful. My boss is a talking shit stain in a suit.” She sighs and rests one arm over the edge of the metal frame of the bench.

“That’s too bad.”

“Isn’t it just?” Amused, her eyes crinkle up.

I nod to the cigarette. “Can I have one?”

“Ah,” she says, licking her lips. “My brother won’t be happy.”

“He’s already unhappy.”

“They’re not good for you.”

“On the contrary, they’re probably one of the better occupations for my mouth.” I say. “This way I can’t speak, or kiss girls.”

Fiona raises a brow, and tosses me one. “Calm down there, drama queen.”

I flip her off.

“And don’t be too hard on yourself.” she says ten minutes later, the end of the cigarette almost burning my fingers. “It gets better.”

“Are _you_ better?” My voice is too sharp – I look away from the weight of Fiona’s eyes on me.

“I’m not happier,” she says after a moment. “But I am better.”

When I look back over the corners of her lips are pulled up in a wry smile. I inhale deeply and lean back into the bench.

“What’s the point,” I say quietly. “In being better if it doesn’t make you happy?”

Fiona frowns at me as if I’ve completely missed something.

“Happiness isn’t the only thing that feels good.” She shakes her head as she snubs out her cigarette and drops it to the ground. I watch the end of it glow, and fade into black.

“Come on kid,” she says, standing up and brushing off her jeans. “Let’s not give your father another reason to throw shit down.”

* * *

**Sophie**

I have done something completely and utterly stupid.

If Penny was here, she’d say, “Christ, Soph, this is completely and utterly stupid, even for you.”

But Penny isn’t here.

“You want a smoke?” yells one of guys I’ve literally just met into my ear. Henry pushes him off by the shoulder. “No, she doesn’t want a fucking smoke, Jim.” He yells back. “She just got here.”

“Um.” I say.

“Do you even smoke?” bellows Henry, turning back to me. Everyone is shouting here. It’s the only way to communicate over the music playing. And by playing, I mean channelling through to the very centre of the earth and back out to the vibrating speakers at break neck speed.

“Sometimes,” I shout.

“I’ve never seen you smoke.” He frowns as he brings the glass of beer to his mouth.

“You’ve never seen me in a gay bar either.”

Like I said. Completely stupid.

I wish I could say that Henry forced me to come with him as his wing girl or whatever. But he didn’t. What happened was that I was chatting to him after school and then he was like “I’ve got to go,” and I was like “oh, where to,” and he was like, “a gay bar, do you want to come?” and I was like, “yes.”

So.

I grab Henry by the collar and pull him down. “What are we even supposed to do here?” I say.

“What?”

“What are we even supposed to do here?” I yell.

“Oh.” He straightens back up. “Drink. Dance. Kiss boys.”

“But we’re in a gay bar.” I shout desperately.

“Oh.” He raises his eyebrows at me. “Then kiss girls.”

I go off to the bar and buy a beer.

When I come back, Henry has a brunette in a vest top draped across his lap, their faces squashed against each other. I poke him in the arm.

“Hey,” I say. “The beer here is shit. I need you to stop eating his face and tell me what to do next.”

Henry makes a disgruntled sort of grunt against the other guys face. The other guy wraps a hand around his neck and somehow manages to squash even more of his face into Henry’s mouth.

“Henry,” I yell. “You selfish bitch. I need your help.”

Henry pulls back with a wet popping sound and squints at me. Multi-coloured lights pass over his shiny face.

“Sophie,” he says. “Go dance. I’m trying to get some dick.”

I finish off the beer and decide I need something stronger. At the bar I order a shot, and another shot. It’s stupid. But if I’m going to be stupid, I might as well go full out.

By now I’ve consumed just enough alcohol that things are starting to get a bit looser around me. The glitter on the walls separates into a thousand different stars. The moving lights spin more slowly, like spaceships decelerating into orbit. The rainbow flag above the bar grows brighter.

“Star of Bethlehem,” I murmur to no one in particular, and chug down the shot. It fizzes in every limb of my body.

“You know,” I say after a moment, swaying closer to the guy who yelled into my ear when I first got here. “We’re all just…gay shepherds.”

He nods, and then frowns deeply. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, you’re right. You’re so right.”

“But I don’t what the sheep are.” I tell him, just in case. “And I’m not gay.”

“Yeah,” he says, still nodding. “That’s what my last boyfriend told me. Ditto.”

“Damn,” I say. “That’s, um… you want a shot?”

“Yeah,” He grunts, nodding even harder now, and slings an arm over my shoulder. “Why the fuck not? Let’s celebrate.”

I order another round and pat him on the back. Quite hard. I frown, bringing my hand back down, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Here’s to shitty boyfriends.” he says, raising the glass in my direction. I pick up mine and jerk it in the general area of his.

“Amen.”  I mumble.

After a couple more moments, he takes his arm away from me and heads off into the throng. I frown, and after I finish my drink, I try to follow him.

The throng is full of moving people. I start to notice as I squeeze my way through sweaty skin and glow in the dark underwear and gyrating hips that there are boys dancing on each other throughout it all, grinding and grinning and kissing each other like it’s natural. Normal. As I pass one couple, one of the guys slips his fingers under the other man’s thong and firmly grips his bare ass.

And then the girls. I pause as I see one couple, a blonde and a dark-haired pair, cupping each other’s chins and leaning into each other’s mouths. Not as friends. But properly, like it means something. Like they know what they want and they’re okay with taking it. And then there’s girls with buzzcuts and ringlets and flannel shirts and jeans and skirts and piercings and false lashes, just couples after couples, kissing, dancing, touching like there aren’t any rules. And it really occurs to me then. That there aren’t any rules here.

There’s nothing here to break.

I move to a space on the dance floor, between all the bodies, and start swaying my hips, back and forth. A Beyoncé song comes on, and I close my eyes and lift my hands up. I can feel the blue light heating up my arms.

I feel so safe here. In the midst of all this glitter and warmth and alcohol and sex, I feel safe. I stretch my arms higher, fingers accidentally brushing and mingling with other hands.

People keep bumping into me. I’ve been drunk before. Everything gets looser, and more viscous, like the texture of a dream. Every step I take feels like swimming.

An arm wraps around my waist and I lean back, closing my eyes. I push back against the body, and it pushes into me.

I smile and turn around. The girl drops her arms, laughing and tipping forward. She shakes her hips a little, her skirt swirling out its frills, and I reach for her side. Her hair is brown, and in my face.

My hands slip up to rub against her waist and she puts her hands on my shoulders. The room is so dark. I keep leaning in and giggling. She’s laughing too, and then she kisses my cheek. She smells like lavender.

I blink, and things are black for a long time. All of a sudden, I realise that there’s too much going on here for what I want. I take her hand and make my way out of the crowd.

I find myself besides the bathroom doors, and then she’s right there. Pushing me against the bit of wall in between. She smiles, and her lipstick is red.

I reach up, and her lips are right there as well. I’m brushing my mouth against her, and it doesn’t really feel like anything. I slump back, my head hitting the plaster, and then we’re kissing again. Her mouth opens up a bit, and her lips are big and kind of slimy and wet on the inside, and then she pulls back, and I slip down onto the ground. I kind of want another drink.

The bathroom door opens and shuts beside me, and after a while I clumsily manoeuvre my body over to the bar. The counter is black and shiny, and a couple of hairy men are snogging beside me. I drop my head onto my arms. There’s a stain near my chin.

I hear the bartender saying something, and I grunt and push my face against the hard surface. Sometime later, Henry is tapping my shoulder and speaking loudly.

“Jesus Sophie,” he’s saying, pulling me up. I try not to wobble. “We should get you home.”

“Where’s the other guy?”  I ask. Forming words is…hard.

“What guy? Christ – look, alright, come here.”

He wraps an arm around my waist, and then we’re by a car and he’s pushing me in.

Sometime later, we’re outside my house, and it’s dark and cold, and I can’t stand still. I manage to find my keys, and there’s the sound of a car in the distance. I get in as quickly as I can.

I succeed in kicking off my shoes and pulling off my bra before I go to sleep, but that’s about it. Everything is sort of blue and silent, and it makes me feel like I’m in the sea. For a moment, I’m trying to remember how to swim. For a moment, I’m looking for mermaids with dark hair, and red lips. And then I’m slipping, and I’m sinking, and it’s pulling me into the deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see you in like, a month probably. knowing me. I'll try and do better. *screams*


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally got a beta! s/o to dragonsandgayvampires on tumblr for helping me out! :D

**Baz**

“We’re finally onto the gravedigger scene.” I say as Sophie pulls out her chair as the bell for period two rings. “It’s glorious. Imagine being so pretentious that you feel inclined to start an argument about who loves a dead person more at their _funeral_. With their _brother_.”

Sophie sits down and pulls out her English folder. It has pictures of cats with moustaches on it.

“This is why I don’t trust theatre people.” I say. “The acting sucks all the genuine emotion out of them. They’re inherently liars, and the worst thing is that they don’t know it.”

Sophie sits her pencil case down and turns to look me dead in the eye.

“I kissed a girl last night.” she says.

Alright then.

 I blink. I blink again. I think about blinking a third time, but that would probably be bordering on excessive.

Sophie is just sitting there, staring at me with wide eyes. Ms Smith comes over with printed handouts and I turn away for a moment, staring unseeingly down at the comic sans text and swallowing. When she’s gone I look back over at Sophie. She’s fiddling with a piece of hair, her face red.

“Okay.” I say, and clear my throat. “Um, when?”

“Last night,” she says in a low voice. I fold my arms. “At – I was drunk.”

 “Who?”

“What?” She glances over. There’s a tiny valley between her brows, like a chunk eaten out of her skin.

“Who was it?” I ask.

“Oh,” she says. “Nobody. It was just – I don’t know who it was.”

I jerk my head and look away again.

Class starts and we both rummage with our pencil cases and go silent. When Ms. Smith turns to scrawl on the whiteboard, I lean over.

“Do you regret it?” I whisper. I duck back over to my side as she turns to face me, and catch a whiff of her perfume. Or shampoo. Or whatever-the-fuck.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice rising. I shush her.

“Did you like it? Or do you wish – you hadn’t?”

“What,” she swallows, her throat dipping. “What kind of question is that?”

“Urm,” I say. “You seem kind of agitated.”

“Says you.” she whispers back angrily. “Your eyebrows are going crazy.”

“Miss. Snow and Miss. Pitch,” snaps Ms.Smith. “Keep going and you can finish your conversation in detention after school.”

We lean apart. When Ms.Smith is distracted again I send Sophie my evillest glare.

“Look,” I say, standing up once the bell has rung for period two. “It’s not my problem. If you want to wind yourself up, feel free.”

“How isn’t it your problem?” She hisses, standing up as well. She’s all up in my face, pink and shiny. The chair legs screech across the plastic floor. “Isn’t kissing girls your thing?”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah I’d bet you like to.” Her voice is loud enough for several people to stare at us. I slam my chair under the table and stalk out of the room.

My cheeks are stinging as I stomp down the overcrowded corrider. I push past people, feeling their eyes on me, burning into my skin, burning every bad word there is across my body like a brand, all these labels – I make it into the bathroom, which is thankfully deserted, and throw my bag to the floor, gripping the edges of the sink. When I look up I realise my eyes are red and my hair is fucking greasy. I tie it up in a knot at the back of my head and try to get a hold of my breathing.

Slowly, I release the edges of the sink and reach my hands up to my face. It’s hot against my palms, and I press against the bone as tight as I can. Like I’m trying to keep myself in one piece. Like I’m clinging to a painted mask.

I take my hands away. My reflection blinks at me.

Everything is so pale. Everything is so empty.

* * *

 

**Sophie**

“Where were you last night?”

I look up at Penny from where I was just napping on the table. A fluff of hair falls into my eyes.

“Penny?” I ask, pushing them out.

She sits down at the lunch table and sighs. She’s doesn’t sound mad. But she might be.

“I tried to call you.” she says. “A couple times.”

“I’m sorry.” I say. I sit up.

“Where were you?”

“Just.”

“Alright.” she sighs again and leans forward. “Don’t tell me. But Sophie, we should talk.”

“I’m sorry.” I say again. “I was just – “

“Is it your father?”

“What?” I say, surprised.

“You’re just – something’s up with you. What’s wrong? I know you find me irritating Soph, but something’s bothering you.”

“I don’t find you irritating,” I say, swallowing, and reach out to take her hand. She shakes her head and draws back.

“It’s okay.” she says. “I’m not trying to – just, I don’t like you like this. You’re all wrong.”

“There isn’t anything wrong with me.” I sit back.

“Okay.” she says. Her voice is soft. I’ve missed her. I’ve been awful to her. “Is it Angus?”

“No.” I say. “Maybe.”

“I’m sorry. I thought – I mean, it wasn’t that surprising was it?”

“What do you mean?”  My voice is too sharp, and I flinch.

“I just mean that…you didn’t seem that attached to him.”

I look down and chew on the corner of my mouth. I see her watching me out of the corner of my eye, all brown hair with purple at the edges, all brown skin with anxious eyes.

“Penny,” I say in a small voice. “Do you think I’m broken?”

“Sophie,” she says, sounding as alarmed as I feel to see the tears in my eyes. “Why would you be broken?”

“What if…what if there’s something wrong with me?” I purse my lips and try to hold it in. “What if I’m…”

“What if you’re what, Sophie?” She’s taken my hand. I curl my fingers into my palm.

“What if I’m programmed wrong? What if I’m just not good?”

“You’re fine.” she says. Her voice is distressed. Penny is like that when she can’t figure things out.

I guess I am too.

“I don’t know.” I say, shaking my head. Tears, hot as blood, spill down my cheeks. “I don’t know.”

“Talk to me, Soph.” Penny reaches for my other hand, but I stand up and step back, still shaking my head.

“I can’t,” I say. “I – can’t.”

“Is it that new girl?” she asks. “Is she being bad to you?”

“I can’t.” I say, and walk away.

* * *

I find myself under that tree in the car park again, smoking for the first time on a packet of the cheapest cigarettes from Asda. The leaves are turning golden. The sun is setting, flickering amber shadows across the littered tarmac, like a puppet play. Best time of the day.

I breathe out, managing to not choke too much. Everything is grey.

 

* * *

 

 

**Baz**

I’m reading and smoking behind a stone column after school when I hear someone clearing their throat. Frowning, I pop the cigarette in my mouth and stand up, making sure not to crumple the edges of my book.

Spare gravel crunches under my soles as I round the corner. I see the shoulder of a blazer from behind the wall, and then I step out and look down. It’s Angus Wellbelove.

He looks up. “Oh,” he says. “Hi, I guess.”

I raise a brow.

“Is that a sketchbook?” I nod at the leather bound volume spread across his lap, and he closes it.

“No.” he says. And then – “Yes.”

“Hm.” He stares at his knees, and then watches me, calmly. He’s such a contrast to Snow.

Fuck Snow.

I blow the smoke out of mouth slowly, letting it unfurl in long grey tendrils. He tips his head to the side.

“You can sit down, if you want.”

I shrug, and sit down. After a moment he gestures to my cigarette. “Can I get one of those?”

I shrug again and hand him one, and a lighter. I look at him as he takes his first drag. He’s done it before.

“I didn’t think you were the kind.” I say.

“What kind?” He isn’t looking at me. “Anyone can smoke.”

“Not everyone does.”

He doesn’t anything. I bring mine up to my lips.

“I guess it really is the quiet ones.” I murmur, after a while. He rolls his eyes.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“So?” I say. “Am I supposed to?”

He shakes his head and turns away. I glance over at him. After a couple moments he sighs and flicks his cigarette against his middle finger. Glowing embers flutter down to his polished school shoes.

“I hate this place,” he says.

I snort. “Who doesn’t?”

“No, I really, really hate it.” The hand holding his cigarette starts to knock against his knee. “There isn’t anything for me here.  I feel like I don’t belong.”

I frown and look at him. His gaze meets mine and his forehead wrinkles.

“Okay.” I say, carefully.

“I just want out,” he says. “I want to get out.”

“Why don’t you belong?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Everyone here feels far away.”

I nod and look away. The sky is moving from blue to a dull lilac. The grass shifts in the light breeze.

“I’m asexual,” he says suddenly.

“I’m sorry?” I take the cigarette out from between my mouth.

“I don’t need to be telling you this. It’s unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary makes the world go round. Tell me.”

“I don’t want a girlfriend.”

“Okay.” I tilt my head to the side. His blond hair is falling into his eyes. “What about a boyfriend?”

He sends me a dry look. “Not that either.”

“Alright.” I say. “So what? You’re independent and live off of only God’s word and Agatha buns? Is your virginity a gift?”

“You know,” he says. “You’re a complete bitch.”

I hold my hands up. “Got me there.”

“Did you even hear me?” He shakes his head, again. “I’m asexual. Do you even know what that is?”

I squint at him. “You really…just want to be alone?”

“Not alone,” he argues. “Just not together. I don’t want to bind my body and soul to someone else. I don’t need that.”

“Lucky you.” I slump back against the bricks.

“It’s fucking lonely,” he says. His voice comes out breathy and irritated. “It’s so lonely.”

I roll my head over to look at him again. “I get that.” I say, quietly.

He puffs out a laugh. “Tell me all about it.”

“I’m gay,” I say. For the first time. The words just come out of me, as if they haven’t been buried deep. They fit in my mouth, round and belonging. Whole.

I blink down at my cigarette.

Angus narrows his eyes.

“I know,” he says. “You’re propositioning my ex.”

I breathe in sharply. I roll my cigarette between my fingers as I swallow.

“I’m not stupid,” he says. “The two of you watch each other like hawks.”

“I’d forgotten,” I say quietly.

“What?”

“I’d forgotten she was your…girlfriend.”

“Well, she isn’t,” he says. “So you don’t need to worry about it.”

“I’m not propositioning her.”

“Aren’t you?” He sounds tired. The only imperfections on his entire face are the twin sets of purple shadows under his eyes. Angus Wellbelove. What has he been doing with himself?

“Why did you two break up?”

“Because,” he says, slowly. “I’m asexual. Aromantic. Whatever.”

“Were you in love?”

He turns his head to the side.

“How many times do you want me to repeat myself?” He asks. “I thought you were supposed to be the smar-“

“No, not you.” I snap. “Her. Was she –“

He snorts. “Sophie Snow was not in love with me. Are you kidding? Her heads always in the fucking clouds.”

I don’t say anything.

“I suppose you’ve got her quite wound up, though. Should’ve known. _You’ve_ probably thrown her right off.”

I close my eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Sophie Snow.”

“Are you sure? She is the protagonist, after all.”

I laugh. “And what are we? Some kind of fucked up love triangle?”

“Something like that.”

There’s some silence.

“How do you deal with it?” I murmur, after a moment. In the distance, the sun is setting into violet smoke. The sky is burning – but not brilliantly. Just quietly. The kind of burning that scatters ashes and leaves everything charcoal black. The kind of burning that steals life.

“What?”

“Being different.”

His exhale is so loud in the evening.

“I don’t.” He tells me. “I just get on with it.”

* * *

**Sophie**

I’m drunk.

Not enough though. Not drunk enough to do stupid things yet. Not drunk enough to feel good.

But drunk enough to be sitting on my own on someone else’s sofa. In a flat I’ve never been to before.

I lie down, the bones in my back pressing into the faux leather, and stare up at the ceiling. All around me, people are chattering in an unrelenting buzz. The ceiling has strange brown spots on it, and there’s a yellow light flickering in the middle of it. I can see the black bodies of dead flies through the glass.

“The fuck you hogging the sofa for?” A girl with falsies that touch her eyebrows and straight hair is leaning on the arm and glowering at me. I sigh and get up.

There are two couples making out in the kitchen. Boys and girls. Girls and boys. I grab a beer and walk out.

I think that maybe I should tell Henry that I’m leaving, but I can’t even remember if I saw him leave or not. I think it was his friend that drove us here. And I’m like, five thousand percent sure that he’s doing weed in the bedroom.

The front door is the kind that has rectangular panels of glass between strips of shiny wood. I push it open and walk down the hallway until I find the stairs.

Outside, the sky is as blue and deep as the ocean. I smoke as I walk, ignoring the shouts of drunk boys echoing off the walls of the small street. My shoes slap against the gum-studded pavement.

I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that it feels like I’m sinking into the earth with every step I take. There’s an opening to a small field at the corner of the street, and so I go through that.

There aren’t any streetlights here. The grass is just a sea of black; the swings of the park silhouetted under the moon. I lie down on a bench and stare up at the night.

There. No more ceiling. Just darkness, and infinity, and stars. On and on.

I spread my fingers out in front of my face. Like a flower. Like an explosion in slow motion. Nothing matters out here. The universe doesn’t care about us. Nothing matters at all.

Maybe not even that.

I try to take a sip of my beer and end up splashing it all down my front. I sigh and drop it to the ground beside me. I don’t need it anymore.

If nothing matters, I think, and none of us are going anywhere, then there isn’t anything to be afraid of. It’s just me and my loneliness. My loneliness and the stars. There’s isn’t anything to be afraid of.

The pain is mine to keep.

I smile. Really wide. I can feel the corners of my mouth cracking. And then my forehead crumples, and I start to cry.

Hard. I sit up, and I can taste the salt in my mouth, feel it dripping from my nose. I clutch at the neck of my shirt, dragging it down, trying to get more air on my skin. The gasps coming from my mouth are the only sound nearby.

I cry really hard. Once it’s over, I’m just sitting there, staring at the peeling paint on the bench, my palms lying empty on my knees.

I close my eyes.

I wish she was here. Just to talk, just to sit with me. Just so I could see the sharp lines of her jaw, the dark outline of her hair, all of her right here, within arm’s length.

I just wish.

But she isn’t. This is all I get. This is all I ever get.

Myself and my loneliness. My loneliness and the stars.

* * *

**Baz**

I see her as I’m walking to the corner shop. Coming round the corner.

White teeth. Blonde hair. Laughing at some joke the brown haired boy by her side is saying. Letting him wrap his arm around her waist.

She stops smiling when she sees me.

 _Good_ , I think. 

_You fucking deserve it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading guys! Leave me a comment if you've got a second! Or constructive criticism. Whatever. I'll take anything. *rubs hands together*


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it is Time...for another..chapter
> 
> I just wrote the last chapter before the epilogue, so I'm feeling pretty buzzed. Things will be a-happening. But first, more drama. *clears throat*
> 
> This chapter kinda needs a small warning, but it's also a bit spoiler-ish, so here's your pre-warning warning:  
> **********  
> **********  
> **********  
> warning: homophobic violence and language

**Sophie**

Penny’s calling me. It’s late. Her voice is pink and soft in my ear.

“Sophie,” she’s saying. “You’re curling back into your shell. I can see it. It’s the same pattern you’ve done before.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“I don’t want to push you too hard. But you know what I’m like. Stubborn and persistent and lou –“

“Penny,” I say.

“But I’m not giving to give up on you.” Her voice drops low. “Do you hear me Sophie Snow? I’m not giving up on you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, clenching down on the sourness building behind my eyes. I can hear her breathing, feel her right there, behind the glass of my phone, throwing me a rope. Like she always does. My Penny.

“Penny.” I say.

“Sophie.”

“I don’t know what to do, Pen.” I whisper. She’s my lifeline. “I don’t know where to go.”

“I’m here, Sophie.”

Pink and soft. Wandering through the darkness.  I’m holding on. 

* * *

It takes time to unwind. I stand under the shower until I’m burnt all over. I rub soap over and over the places on my skin where it’s started to break out in angry patches of greasy red. I brush my teeth until my gums are raw. When I spit, there’s speckles of blood in the sink. I stare at them.

I undo my hair, letting it settle down in a corn yellow cloud all over my shoulders. My scalp aches from having my bun in too long. I rub my fingers over it, massaging the sore points.

When I get into bed, the sheets are cold. I think about warm bodies, but what’s the point? Everything I want is aching. Everyone.

I wish I could take the words back. I wish I wasn’t myself. But most of all, I wish it was okay to want the things that I do. The things that hurt me. The things that are like me. The things that are far away.

But there’s no point.

Maybe it’s not about destinations with people at all. Maybe it’s just about the feeling. All the wanting and aching and groaning.

In that case, I think, then she’s done her job. I am all wanting, and aching, and groaning.

I am all feeling, with nowhere to go.

* * *

I end up going to school with my hair tied up on top of my head in an elastic band. I couldn’t find my two (three?) remaining bobbles. My skin is dry and rough in places, and two of the spots on my forehead have formed bulbous yellow heads. I try to pop them in front of the bathroom mirror at break, and they both start bleeding. I press toilet paper against them and go outside to have a kit kat with Penny.

Penny puts her arm around me when I see her. I think I’ve finally activated her mother hen mode. She keeps speaking to me in calm, hushed tones, and offering me big chunks of her food. Not that I’m complaining. It’s so nice. She smells like drugstore perfume.

I still won’t tell her what’s wrong, and I can tell it frustrates her. I worry that underneath it all, she’s still angry at me for abandoning her these past few months. I still worry that there are problems to fix, and once her patience for me runs out, I won’t know what to do.

I should tell her what’s wrong with me. She keeps asking me, subtly needling it out:

“You can tell me anything you want.”

“You know I love you, no matter what, Soph.”

“I’m here for you. Whatever shit you go through, I’ll always be here to go through it with you. When you want me. If you want me….Just let me know.”

But the problem is that I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just don’t know.

Baz isn’t in English. She only sits beside me in Drama class, but I see her in the other classes too. Prose. Poetry.

Not a single flicker of her black hair, or her golden skin. Her eyeliner. Her cruel mouth.

Not cruel. Cold. Not cold.

Something else.

She’s something else.

I stare off into the distance, my gaze meandering through chair legs and piles of papers and over ticking clocks. Lost. Aimless.

The bell rings, and I start. My pencil falls out of my mouth and Ms.Smith frowns at me.

Gym class is a goddamn mess. We’re playing rounders because the hockey sticks are used up, and I’m beyond hopeless with a ball.

“Damn it, Sophie!” Jennifer is glaring at me as she runs past to pick up the tennis ball. The girl just running has scored the other team a home run. I bend over and gasp as I clutch at my knees.

 When it’s our turn to bat I end up going out on my first try. I sprawl out on the grass behind the line of my team and stare up at the sky. The clouds are blowing minutely to the side, but I try to pretend it’s the world turning. Evidence that the solar system doesn’t revolve around us.

Some of the girls are giving me the cold shoulder as we go in, but I don’t really notice until we’re in the changing room. I’m stepping out of my skort when Georgia speaks.

“So, Sophie,” she says, glancing over at me. I look up. “I heard you had a good time with Henry a while ago.”

I blink. “Urm,” I say as I reach for my tights. “I guess?”

“Want to tell us what you were doing?”

I stand up straight. Several of them are watching me, and Georgia’s face is twisted and mean.

“I was at a party.” I say slowly. “There a problem with that?”

“No.” she says, stepping forward. I catch Julia frowning. “But I do have a problem with perverts.”

“What?”

“Hey,” Enola is walking over. “What’s going on?”

“Sophie was at a gay bar.” I feel myself flush hot all over. I don’t dare look at anyone else.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I say.

“What’s wrong with that?” Enola is folding her arms. “People can go where they want.”

“Why are you lying, Soph?” Georgia is watching me. I swallow.

“I’m not lying.” I say.

“I heard you were kissing girls.” Jennifer chimes in. She’s behind Georgia, smirking. She pouts her lips and makes wet smacking sounds.

“That true, Soph?” Georgia is right up in my face. I shake my head.

“Oh, come off it.” Jennifer steps forward. “Soph, I don’t have a problem with that lezzy shit, but no need to play pretend. We’re all friends here.”

I shake my head.

“Leave her alone,” says Enola.

“After she admits it.” Georgia nods at her and looks back at me. “Come on.”

“Come on out the closet, Sophie,” Jennifer sings in a falsetto. If everyone in the room wasn’t watching before, they are now. Her voice slices through the silence. “It’s okay to be gay.”

“We have a right to know.” says Georgia.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Ooooh.” Behind me, someone laughs.

“No need to get worked up.” Georgia raises her brows. “We were just asking.”

“She’s just scared her boyfriend’s going to catch her fucking the new girl.” says Jennifer. Georgia snorts and starts to turn around.

I reach out and smack her. I hear Enola gasp. My hand is stinging.

Georgia is on me in two seconds. She glares, her face red, and pushes me over. I trip on the bin and fall on my ass.

“What a bitch,” says someone, but I don’t have time to figure it out before Georgia kicks me in the side. I cough and then reach for her shirt, pulling her down.

“Get off me,” she shouts. “Fucking dyke.” I reach to punch her in the face, but someone wraps their arms around my neck and is pulling me backwards. I gasp. Jennifer holds me down as Georgia kicks me again. I groan. People are yelling above me.

“Fuck,” I can hear Julia’s voice. “Let her go.”

Georgia kneels over and hits me on the side of my face. I accidentally bite down on my tongue, and shout in pain. “I don’t want any fucking girl fags watching me undress.” She whispers, loud enough so only I can hear it. “You hear me?”

I spit in her face and she hits me again. Jennifer is digging her fingernails into my arms. I cry out.

“Stop it!” Someone pushes in front and grabs me. Jennifer finally lets me go and I hit my head off the bin. When I open my eyes, Julia is pushing Georgia back. She watches me with bloodthirsty eyes as she lets herself get pulled back.

“Got to teach them a lesson.” Jennifer is talking. “Or else she’ll have her eye on you.”

“Fuck,” says someone. “Shut the hell up.”

“Fuck you!” I shout, and groan as my stomach spasms.

“I don’t have a problem with most fags, but they just got to learn to stay away from me.” Georgia spits, her face splotchy, and then slams open the changing room door. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

She and Jennifer leave. The majority of the girls have already filtered out at some point, not wanting to get involved. Enola starts to walk over to me, but as I stand up Julia catches her arm and gives her a look. I pretend not to see.

The bathroom is empty. I hear the changing room door swing open and closed several times, and then everything is silence. I look up at myself in the mirror.

My face is covered in bruises. I walk closer, resting both hands on the side of the sink, and then heave in a great, shivering sob.

“Fuck,” I say, and begin to cry.

* * *

**Baz**

 My hands are shaking. I sit on the edge of my bed, staring off into the distance.

_Hey, she’d said, moving against me. All golden hair and cream skin. Let me touch you._

_Hey, she’d said. You’re so pretty. Let me feel you._

_Hey, she’d said, and leaned in close. Nobody has to know._

I close my eyes and exhale slowly.

She hadn’t even said hello to me. She hadn’t even slowed down.

My hands are shaking. I reach for my phone.

_Sometimes, Angus had said earlier. I feel like doing it anyway. Even though I don’t want it. Just to fuck with myself._

“Hey,” I say into the speaker. “It’s Baz.”

_I feel like I deserve it, he’d said._

“Oh. Hey. What is it?”

_I deserve to be hurt._

I clench my fists in my sheets.

“Okay.” he says after a long pause. “I’ll – I’m coming over. Tell me your address.”

* * *

His skin is all pale and watercolour under the low dim of my bedroom lights. My parents are out. I stand up and tug off my shirt.

“Are you sure?” He asks.

“Are you?”

Up close, he smells like sweat and skin. I always expected it to be poetic and intimate for some reason – but it isn’t.

It’s just bodies. It’s just breathing.

Boys look the way you’d predict under their clothes. There aren’t any surprises. There aren’t any secrets.

Boys don’t look like girls.

They don’t feel like them, either.

Nothing is the same. There isn’t any magic. My shoulders rub into the sheets, and he holds his hands to the side. We don’t look at each other.

I keep waiting to come alive, and don’t. My body is dormant. My body is dead.

We’re just corpses, imitating life. We’re just broken teenagers, failing to fix each other.

Maybe it is an illness.

Afterwards, we roll apart and fall silent. He looks at me. I swallow.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

“Yeah.”

He gets up and reaches for his pants. I curl my arms around my knees.

* * *

**Sophie**

The air is salty in my mouth as I walk along the dampened length of the pavement. It’s stained a black so deep it feels like my feet are sinking into it. When I look up the sky is blotched grey and white, exhausted of rain.

I walk.

When I get home, I stop outside. Dad’s car is in the drive. I swallow, staring up at front door, the white paint peeling away to reveal grimy browns. My hands tighten around the straps of my bag, and I keep walking.

I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that I have to keep going, have to keep walking. Down the pavement. To the end of the street. Beyond.

There’s a cluster of trees, barely enough to be given the luxury of being called a forest, at the end of the street after that. When I was ten, my Dad used to warn me about the rapists and vandals inside.

The trunks of the trees are mousy brown and carved all over with initials and swear words, the branches brittle and creaky. Spray paint and broken bottles embellish the floor of dirt and crushed leaves. I watch my steps, careful not to lodge any shards of glass in my feet.

I walk until I reach the end of the trees.

There’s a small field at the back, overlooking the shitty excuse of the town I’ve grown up in. I turn away from the view of tiny houses, with their tinier drawn on windows, and sit down on the grass. It’s wet. Dew clings to my school skirt.

I draw my legs into my body and wrap my arms around my knees. I drop my head, breathing in.

It’s no use. None of this is any use.

It’s cold enough for my jaw to chatter. I don’t know what I was looking for. What I was expecting.

I stand up, brushing the back of my skirt. I walk back home, blinking heavily. When I get there, my Dad’s door is shut tight as ever. I don’t let myself dwell. I run a shower and mechanically scrub the soap over my bruises.

* * *

I don’t go to school the next day. I stay in my room all day, hiding under the covers. Staring out the window. I try to cry, but what difference does it make? There isn’t anybody to hear.

Eventually I pull out my dissertation book – Jane Eyre – and try to make a dent in it, but I can’t focus. Restless, I get dressed and pull my hair back in a ponytail.

The school day has been finished for an hour by the time I get there. I pretend I don’t know what I’m here for. I walk around the deserted building, kicking stones.

I turn the corner, and stop. Baz is curled down in one of the small alcoves behind the columns. She looks up and sees me as well. I step closer.

She take a drag of her cigarette as she watches me, her eyes unfathomable. My hands fiddle with the loose bits of fluff inside my pockets as I try to think of something to say.

She sighs and beats me to it.

“Snow.” she says. The circles under her eyes are so dark they look like she’s been punched in each socket.

“Hey,” I say, and step into the alcove. “Hey.”

She just keeps on smoking.

“It’s been awhile,” I say, and then instantly regret it. “I mean – I’m sorry.”

“Whatever about?” Her voice is dry and cracked. She’s staring at the wall ahead of her.

“Can I sit down?” I ask.

She shrugs and I do, my body mirroring hers. She still manages to look through me.

“Baz,” I say, desperate, and then she looks at me. The grey of her eyes look watered down.

I lean forward. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.” I tell her. “I didn’t mean it.”

She looks at her feet.

“I’m sorry, Baz.”

“Okay,” she says. Her voice sounds strained. “That’s okay.”

I find that I want to reach for her hand. And then the names that Georgiana and the rest of them had called me float through my mind, and I curl my fist into a ball.

“I missed you.” I say instead.

She breathes in sharply and looks up at me then. I try not to blink.

“Snow,” she says, and then abruptly stops. I wait.

She closes her eyes for a moment and then looks up again. She looks drained. Starved.

“What do you want from me?” She asks after a moment, her voice barely a whisper. I frown.

“I thought we were friends.” I say.

“Did you?” She murmurs.

 “Aren’t we? What’s – what’s wrong with that?”

She doesn’t say anything for a long while, and I give in and reach for her sleeve. There isn’t much room between us in the narrow space. I rub the material between my fingers.

She closes her mouth and presses her lips together. I look away, and down to the ground between our feet. My heart is thrumming in my fingers.

“You want to be friends.”

“Yes,” I say, catching my breath. “I want –“

“We can be.” she says. I look up. “We can be friends.”

I nod. “Okay.”

I let go of her sleeve and look out at the sky. It rained again earlier.

When I glance back over she’s closer than before. Her eyes aren’t focused. I can feel her breath on my chin.

“Baz,” I say. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

She leans back against the wall. “Just peachy, Snow.” She hums and then reaches for my sleeve. I press my lips together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dancing to the beat* let me know! *shake,shake* what you think! *shake, shake*  
> *puts maracas down*  
> seriously though, thanks for all the comments and love. you guys are the best <3
> 
> ALSO HAPPY HALLOWEEN aren't all the snapchat halloween filters adorable? like, the government can screen my face all they want, but i still get to have fangs in my photo, so who wins, david cameron?


	13. Chapter 12

St.Andrews is coming up. It’s a dance night. That’s the thing about Scotland. You can’t just have normal dances, like Prom. Like the ones you see in the movies. Everything has to be about skipping and bagpipes and haggis. We can’t have prom. It has to be _St.Andrews._

Britain is like a polished, reserved and tea-sipping version of America.

And Scotland is like a prancing, ginger-haired and Irn Bru snorting version of Britain.

I guess I’ve never been particularly patriotic.

I exhale through my nose and crumple the silk in my hand. I smear the lipstick under my lip as I try to clean it up. Then I swear quietly and reach for the packet of cigarettes Baz gave me.

_“Can I try?” I’d gestured to her hand. She’d looked at me and frowned. Bit her lip._

_“Here,” she says. “Just – take a packet.”_

_Her hand was cold. She peered at me over the curve of her wrist and blew smoke into my face. Then closed her eyes, like it took all the energy out of her._

It’s stupid to get all sentimental about it. But I am. Nothing spells romance like a pack of Malboro Gold.

I inhale deeply, the paper resting on my lower lip. It tastes awful. It tastes how I imagine she tastes.

I heard once that every drag takes a minute off your life.

Oh well.

* * *

 

My heels clack loudly against the stone pavement, sending uncomfortable twangs up my ankles. Goosebumps prickle against the cut of my dress, and my chest is uncomfortably bare to the world.

“Have you been smoking?” asks Penny after she opens the door, frowning and sniffing at the air. I shrug and she sighs and gestures for to come in.

“You look great.” I say as I follow her upstairs.

“Thanks!” she shouts back, over the sound of a hairdryer coming from one of her sisters’ rooms. “You too. Oh. What are you doing with your hair?”

I shrug again as I step into her room. The floor is littered with opened palettes and pots and brushes. Like a treasure cave. She closes the door behind me.

“I washed it.” I say.

She folds her arms. “I can straighten it for you?”

I end up sitting on her floor, watching our reflections in the mirror. Penny’s wearing a cream off the shoulder piece, which flares out at her hips. She stares intently at the lock of hair she’s working on, pulling it through the iron.

“Hey,” I say after a moment. “I think I should tell you about Baz.”

She meets my eyes in the mirror and pauses, before reaching for the next piece. “Okay.” she says.

I swallow. She sets the iron down and smiles a little at me.

“It’s just hard to explain.” I say.

“I know you two have been spending a lot of time together.”

“Yes.” I say. I clear my throat. “We…we’re sort of friends.”

“Okay.” says Penny. She waits.

Penny is smart. She’s always been so smart. She knows it’s more than that.

“Penny,” I say. “It’s just – I think…”

She blinks.

“I think we’re…I think I…I like her. I – I think I might be...”

“Okay,” says Penny, and reaches for my shoulder. “That’s okay, Soph.”

I nod and squeeze my eyes shut. Penny wraps her arms around me. I twist the film of my tights into a little ball between my fingers.

“It’s okay.” she says. “It’s okay to be…whatever you are. It’s okay to want whatever you do.”

I nod again, and then shake my head, sitting up straight. “Okay,” I say, and am a little horrified when my voice cracks.

“Soph,” she says, reaching for my hand. “You know I don’t care about that stuff. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” I say again, squeezing her fingers, and think _But how? How do I know?_

_How do you ever really know?_

* * *

“Hey Sophie,” says Angus. I balk and drop the cheeto I was about to eat back into its plastic cup. I can see Penny approaching us from over Angus’s shoulder, and then she catches sight of him and visibly mouths “Yikes” to herself. She turns back around and disappears into the crowd.

I vow to pelt her to death via cheetos later.

“Um,” I say, “Hi.” I chew on my lip and try to look him in eye. It’s uncomfortable. Jesus, how did I ever make out with this guy?

“How are you?”  I ask his eyebrow, trying not to shuffle like a first year on the spot.

He blinks. “Fine,” he says. “Look. I just wanted to say that I think we should at least try and act civil to each other.”

“Aren’t we acting civil?” I mumble.

He frowns. “I meant – we should stop avoiding each other. I know you’re avoiding me. I saw you ducking into the janitors closet yesterday when I was coming down the corridor.”

“Oh.” I say, a little helplessly.

“And trying not to talk to Penny is like trying to hide from God.”

“You’ve been talking to Penny?”

He tips his head to the side a little. “This,” he says. “Is why we should just agree to be civil Sophie.”

“Okay,” I say. “Great. Glad to get that sorted out.”

“And I wanted some Cheetos.” He reaches over to the table where the plastic cups are stacked. “Also, Baz is staring at you.”

“I didn’t know you liked Cheetos.” I say, and then the second part of his sentence registers and I turn around to where Baz is indeed watching me and Angus with her lips curled down. When she catches me watching she frowns a little and then turns away. She’s wearing a simple red dress. Her hair is long enough now to be brushing her shoulders as she moves.

I turn back and Angus is gone, and has been replaced by Penny. “Yikes,” she says, raising her eyebrows and reaching for her own cup of Cheetos. “That looked fun.”

“Damn you,” I say. “For leaving me alone.”

She squints at me. “Was it really that bad?”

“No,” I say. “But damn you.”

A little later the music comes on, the sound of bagpipes and drums blasting from the black speakers at the far end of the hall. Penny gets me to dance with her, and a little later I end up doing the Gay Gordon’s with Henry, to the hilarity of us both.

I spend the whole time sneaking glimpses of Baz.

When the speaker announces the end of the night after our Auld Lang Syne I follow Penny to get our coats, trying not to trip as I search desperately. I finally catch sight of her again in the car park. She pauses, gesturing for Nina to go on, and turns around, meeting my gaze. I stop.

“Come on,” says Penny. “The bus is leaving soon.”

“You go ahead.” I say. Penny opens her mouth to say more, and then catches sight of Baz and stops.

“Okay,” she says. “Call me.”

I nod and walk over to Baz, who has been watching the exchange between me and Penny. When I’m within arm’s reach she gives me an appraising look. She looks different again. Better. More into herself than last time.

More aware.

“Snow,” she says, her lips curling around the O. I catch my breath.

“Aren’t you going to the after party?” I ask.

She shakes her head slowly. “Are you?”

“No.”

She smiles a little. Pulls out a cigarette.

“Come on then,” she says, and I follow her into the darkness.

“Where are we going?” I ask after a while. The roads are different at night. The traffic lights glow like oil lamps and our school disappears into a small block of inked up brown in the background, illuminated in speckles of white. The sky is dripping blue. Baz walks with her head held high, the sharp lines of her face cutting through the night.

“Not sure yet,” she says, smirking in the corner of her mouth, and then she really does look better, she really does look like herself.

Eventually we turn into a parking lot and I slow down.

“Asda?” I ask incredulously.

She smiles, teeth glinting in the night. “What?”

“It’s just,” I say. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” she says. “Just come on then.”

We head into the store, bright lights flooding the packed shelves in white. We head over to the snacks section.

She pulls the cigarette out of her mouth. “Want something to eat?”

I frown at her but reach for a giant packet of Monster Munches. When I look back at her, she seems to be holding in laughter.

“What?” I say, smiling despite myself. She looks at me.

 “Nothing, Snow,” she says.

She leads me to the drinks section and pulls out a four pack of diet coke. Then we head over to the till and pay. The cashier gives Baz’s cigarette a pointed look, but doesn’t say anything.

We head back outside, and I follow her to where she sits down on a brick wall surrounding the back of the shop. I plop myself down beside her, trying not to smile too much.

“So,” I say. “Is this your idea of an after party?”

She looks at me from the side of her eyes.  “This,” she says, voice low and amused, “is my idea of pre-drinks.”

She hands me a coke and I knock my can against hers. “Cheers,” I say.

“Cheers,” she says, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

The coke is cold in my mouth, the bubbles biting into the back of my throat. There’s a whole world that’s living around us – the lorry men unpacking crates in green jackets, an old granny hobbling home with her bags of shopping tugging her shoulders forward, the whole sky opening up above us, the stars glimmering – and all I can look at is her. All I can do is watch her.

 _Who are you?_ I think to myself as I take her in, her black hair, her coffee skin, the sharp tip of her nose. _How did I get here?_

_All these people in the world, living around us, and here I am with you._

“Tell me something.” I say. She smiles slightly.

“What do you want to hear?”

“Just talk to me.” I sound almost desperate. “I just want to hear you.”

“It’s not like I’m going to disappear, Snow.”

There’s a timid pause.

“Aren’t you?”  I whisper.

She looks over at me then. She’s all warm and liquid and just _happier_ than she usually is, has been all evening, but underneath it all, her dark eyes are strained in the nightlight as she looks at me, searching, searching, and I just know what’s she feeling, because I’m feeling it as well.

“Sophie,” she says then, and I exhale. “What do you want from me?”

 _Who are you?_  I think.

“Baz,” I say.

She’s leaning in, her gaze tipping towards my mouth, and it’s happening and she’s here _it’s happening_ , and Baz is here, she’s with me, and –

I just want the darkness between us to disappear.

I just want everything else to disappear but us.

I gasp, too loud in the silence, and she opens her eyes lazily, like she’s just woken up. “Sophie,” she says softly. Her hand comes up and reaches for mine, unfolding it like a rose, and I feel her trace over the creases of my skin, acquainting herself.

 _Who are you?_ I think again, and then I decide it doesn’t matter, because she’s Baz and she’s here and I know her.

“What is this?” she asks and brushes her fingers over the blushing bruises on my arm.

“I…”

“Is it your Dad?” she looks up, eyes alert, and I shake my head.

“No,” I say. “Fuck – Baz ,no.”

She waits, looking.

“I…” I sigh. “I got into a fight.”

Her fingers are visiting butterflies on my skin. “The girls.” I say. “In the changing room. I…they found out. About.”

The fingers pause. “Us?” she says quietly.

“No.” I say, and swallow very hard. “No, just that I’m…I –“

“Fuck.” she says, and takes her fingers away.

 “Baz.”

“Fuck.” she sits up straighter and clenches her jaw. “Fuck, I can’t – “

“Please.” I say.

Her body curls forward and then she presses her forehead into her palms and brings in her knees. My heart is breaking.

“I hate straight girls.” she says very quietly.

The words hover between us in the still night, almost violently. I sit very still. How did we get to this point?

When she doesn’t come back up after several moments I lean over and thread my hand over her skirt, reaching for one of her hands. She lets me, but she’s so cold under my skin.

“Tell me,” I say, clearing my throat. “What happened to you?”

I wait in the silence. I wait until I’m almost afraid that she’s just not going to answer me, that I’ve just made everything worse by asking, but then she leans over and puts her head on my shoulder and says in the smallest voice I’ve ever heard from her:

“I slept with your boyfriend.”

I freeze. The luminous green of the Asda sign flickers in the background, and as I am counting my breaths, I notice the tears cutting a perfectly straight line down her foundation, and that’s when I realise she’s crying. _God._  

“But –”I begin, and then stop.

My heart is thrumming, a wild thing in my chest. Slowly, my hand comes up and I start to stoke her hair.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers in a broken voice. She clings to me like she has nowhere to go.

“ _Why?”_ My voice is loud in the now empty car park.

She breathes in a shuddery breath and sits back up, not looking at me. In the back of my mind, I note that she’s a beautiful crier.

“I wanted –” she says, and stops. I dig my nails into my palms.

“Him?” I force out. “Do you want –“

“No,” she says quickly. “No, never, Sophie, I –“

She looks over at me, and then grabs my hands and pulls them into her lap, looking quite mad about the eyes.

“Why?” I ask again, and her shoulders slump.

“I just wanted,” she says, each word cut like a diamond. “To not be gay.”

I breathe out sharply. “Oh,” I say. “ _Oh_.”

“Snow,” she says, clinging to my hands.

“It’s Sophie,” I snap, and she blinks. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know it. Like you don’t even –“

I sigh and look down at our hands, tangled together against the red of her dress. _What a mess_ , I think. _What a fucking mess._

Her hands tighten even further.

“Sophie,” she breathes. “You know. You have to already know.”

It feels like the bones in my hands are being crushed. It feels, ridiculously, like the most important moment in my life.

I meet those grey eyes head on. “Then why don’t you be with me?” I whisper, and a wall in me shatters.

 _Oh,_ says a voice in my head, surprised and innocent. _That’s what you want._

She is so, so close, and I can see it in her eyes. It feels like I’m free-falling into the sky.

“I can’t,” she says, and lets go of my hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me. This isn't the ending.


	14. Chapter 13

**Baz**

I haven’t been able to focus all of Saturday. This morning, either. After lunch I ditched my books and headed out into the garden, the freshly trimmed grass darkening the leather of my shoes.

The grounds of the Grimm-Pitch property are big enough to squeeze in at least five copies of the school. We have rolling hills, stretching out lazily towards the horizon, a green giant turning over restlessly in its sleep. There are at least thirty different types of trees from here to the border, and easily over a hundred different flowers. Not to mention Daphne’s vegetable garden.

My old school fit in better with this scene. The filthy rich scene. There were cream stone walls rising up to the heavens, and oil paintings lining the corridors between classes. It even had gargoyles.

All that went to shit, of course, once the deputy caught me buggering Lisa Richards in the storage room, and called my parents in. Good old Catholic private schools. I still remember the feel of the velvet underneath my hands as they handed my parents the incriminating photographs. Fucking photographs. I huff out a laugh of disbelief into the cold air.

And so they brought me here, down into the weariness of the working class. To Sophie Snow.

I sigh.

There is no way to get what you want. No winning. I almost laugh when I realise I’ve just fulfilled another unhappy lesbian stereotype. I suppose it’s a stereotype for a reason.

There is no winning. No happy endings. Not for people like me.

I sit down on the nearest marble bench and blink against the view. I think of her, of Sophie Snow, with her beautiful, fluffy hair bursting over her shoulders, of her round hips and peach skin, leaning forward in the supermarket light, her breath wet against my collarbone, her cheeks redder than cherries. I think of her eyes, serious and attentive and filled to the brim with god knows what is happening in that mind of hers, and of  the ever-consuming blue, _blue blue blue_ – as blue as anything.

I want to drown in that blue. I want to live in it.

I sit, thinking of Sophie Snow, and let all that want just rise up in me, just for a moment, just for one, painstaking, glorious moment. Because I _do_ want her, I want her more than I can ever remember wanting anything or anyone, and there is no way that any human can contain all of this wanting inside of them without a little spilling.

So I spill. I feel. And it is everything. 

And then it’s gone. Pulled back under my skin, hidden in secret places, where it belongs. Because Sophie Snow and I do not belong together, and things like Sophie Snow are not for me.

I watch as robin swoops across the ground, its dainty wings fluttering against the grass. The sound of a nearby fountain gurgles in the background.

Sometimes, I think, the simple truth of it is that being gay makes you live some kind of half-life. We lock ourselves away in the shadows, in the dark places – in the closets – where nobody can find us, or know us, or love us. We become so good at hiding, at lying, that even when we dare to go looking, we can’t find ourselves. You wake up, and don’t recognise yourself in the mirror. You wake up, and don’t know how you got here. How we came to be like this.

Who did this to us? You take away a human’s freedom to love, and that ability becomes crippled, a shaking, shrivelled thing, wincing at every glimpse of light. You take away a human’s desire to love, and you push it in a small place, where it’s body will break if it tries to grow, and lock the door behind you, uncertain if you’ll ever let it back out. And even when you try, later, it will always bear the limp, the injury of isolation, agony lacing every step it takes forward.

Take away a human’s feelings of love and desire and want, and you take away the human themselves. We leave behind ghosts and empty shells, wandering the world half-blind. Always alone. Always lonely.

Who did this to me?

I breathe in the cold air, my chest rising, and swallow against the loss.

* * *

Dinner is a tiresome affair. I sit with my legs crossed and my eyes trained on my napkin as Father interrogates each of us about our day.

“You should be cautious with the yoga Daphne,” he wipes his lip on the napkin and carefully skewers another roast potato. “Spirituality is a slippery slope.”

I slice my parsnip into long, wispy strips. Besides me, the baby starts to whine.

“I don’t trust those hippies – Morelia, could you please take Victoria upstairs?”

Morelia scoots off her chair and silently reaches for the baby, which is now crying outright, and pats it soothingly on the back as she slips out the dining room.

“Sebastiana,” says my father, and I look back over. “How is school going?”

I look back down at my plate. “Fine,” I say. “The coursework isn’t too difficult.”

“If that’s the case, perhaps you should enrol in more extracurricular classes. It’s good to push oneself. And – to distract from distasteful activities.”

I clench my jaw. “I don’t need to enrol in more classes, father.”

He peers at me, his eyes as sharp as the fish knife clutched in my hand. “Don’t you?” He asks. “It’d do you good to remember why you’re here. I wouldn’t like it very much if you were slagging off, as they seem to call it.”

“Malcolm,” says Daphne, giving him a warning look.

“I’ve been hearing things,” He says, looking at me. The room has gone extraordinarily quiet. “Rumours. I don’t think I want to be hearing anymore, do you?”

I stare at my plate.

“Am I understood, Titania?”

I swallow. Nod. Get the words out. “Perfectly, father.”

He settles back into his seat, resuming his meal. Daphne is watching me.

“Good.” He says. “I wouldn’t want to be having words with a certain – what’s her name? Sophie Snow.”

I slam my knife down. One of my siblings gasps.

“Don’t talk about her.”

Father looks at me levelly. “Are you certain?” he sneers. “I think perhaps I should. Rather dirty backstory on that one, isn’t there? A mother who left for America seconds after giving birth? A maniacal artist for a father who not-so-secretly wanted a son? ” He raises his eyebrow. “I think I rather agree with him on that last one.”

I stand up. The chair screeches awfully on the polished wood.

“I said,” I grit out, my voice low and unsteady. “To not talk about her.”

“Baz,” says Daphne.

My father is still looking at me, in that evil, evil way. “Don’t think I haven’t done my research, Titania,” he says quietly. “I can always pull those strings if you make me.”

I step away from the dining table and head towards the door.

“Baz,” Daphne calls behind me. “Where are you going?”

I snarl and let the door slam behind me.

In the hallway, I fumble with my father’s jacket for a moment, until a set of silver keys fall into my palm. Then I push open the front door, and stomp off into the night.

I’ve had enough.

* * *

**Sophie**

I wake up to the sound of rumbling.

The room is dark, layers of grey piled atop each other. I shift onto my side, blink away the remaining fogginess in my eyes. It sounds like someone has pulled into our drive, but Dad hasn’t used his rusting ford in years.

I wriggle my toes under the duvet, and then manage to swivel around enough to stand up and walk over to the window.

When I pull back the curtains, there she is. Revving up on the side of my street. The amber streetlight spilling just enough into the blacked-out windows to reveal the sharp slopes of her face.

I stand there, my heart stopping for one, two – three beats – before I’m tugging on a pair of leggings and off down the stairs, not even trying to calm myself as I scuff on my holey trainers and unlock the front door.

There’s a jaguar waiting for me.

* * *

We don’t say much on the drive. I don’t even ask where we’re going. All I know is that the world opens up as we speed down the empty tarmac lengths of the road, cutting through the underwater blue of before dawn.

I examine her when we pull into the petrol station. Her dark skin looks cool, and the shadows under her eyes are as dark as oil, but she’s still beautiful. I let myself think the word. I’m not sure yet if I like the way it makes my skin writhe with my pulse.

I haven’t stopped thinking about the St. Andrews night. About the tilt of her head and the warm length of her throat and the way she said, _Sophie, Sophie, you have to know._ The way she said, _what do you want from me?_

The way she said, _I can’t._

And let go.

But she’s here now. She’s outside the car, pumping it with petrol, and I’m not so secretly watching her in the rear mirror. She catches my eye right before she disappears into the dingy shop to pay.

Did she really sleep with Angus? I try to feel angry, or betrayed, or jealous, but all I really feel is this deep, never-ending sadness. Disappointment – but not with her, how could I be disappointed with her? Or even him, I suppose, but god, why is Angus even a part of the conversation now? She is all I think about. She is all I’ve been thinking about for a while now.

The door opens in one fluid motion and then Baz is in the driver’s seat, looking at me properly and handing me something. When I look down, I realise it’s a giant pack of monster munch.

I take it. Look back up. Her eyes are deeper than the sadness.

She meets my gaze steadily, as if trying to read me. I’m not sure why – if anything, I’m the open one here.

_I can’t._

  _Yes,_ I think to myself as she looks at me. _Yes, you bloody well can._

“Baz,” I say, just as she says “Sophie.”

We both pause, and then she grimaces. “You go.” she says. Her voice is hoarse.

“I just.” I swallow, and glance away. But only for a moment. She’s still watching me, and it makes me feel something like hope.

“When did you learn to drive?” I ask.

She looks surprised, and then starts to laugh, running a hand through her hair. “Um,” she says. “A while ago.”

She looks back up at me, and the way she looks at me is just so full, just so round, bursting at the edges with everything that she wants to say. It looks like it’s eating her alive. It looks like it’s going to overflow.

_You have to already know._

I do.

“Go on then,” I say before she can try to say any of it, and nod at the steering wheel. “Drive.”

She’s caught off guard again, but then she smiles, the corner of her mouth digging a line into her smooth cheeks as she reaches for the wheel.

* * *

If you drive for long enough along any of the roads that snake through our neighborhood, the rows of semi-attached houses and corner shops disappear into long crops of green fields and wooden fences, which in turn disappear into thinned-out woods and scattered wildflowers, and beyond that, there is the sea.

Baz pulls into one of the spaces in the empty parking lot. We’ve been driving for so long that the morning is just beginning to break over the cliffs before us.  I kept expecting to fall asleep, but couldn’t, just kept staring through the darkness at the sharp lights of the dashboard and occasional other car passing by, my entire body aware of her. The way she moved, the confident grasp of her hands on the steering wheel, the flick of her thin fingers snapping the indicator up or down, the glances she gave me every now and then, out of the corner of her eyes – it is all etched into my memory, with the sort of heavy-hand that feels mildly life-altering. I can’t help feeling like a witness to some monumental moment of history.

We sit in silence in the car for a moment, my cheek resting on the head cushion as I look at her. She kills the engine, and then slowly turns her head to look at me. She smiles gently.

“Hey,” I say. My voice is croaky.

“Hey,” she says softly. I blink at her.

I watch her as we get out, her black hair whipping in the wind as she slams the door shut. The ocean is a thing to behold – azure waves smash into the rocks like ceramic dishes in an argument, and the sun is just beginning to drip golden onto the jagged edges of the cliff, rising defiantly out of the chaos.

I walk forward, the sound of Baz following as I make my way to the edge. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen the sea in real life before – the whole view is utterly captivating, beckoning me forward.

The whole world is blue, and blowing into me.

A cold hand grabs my wrist just as I reach the edge, and I turn back to see Baz, the shadows of her face especially dramatic. Baz, I think absently to myself, should always be by the sea.

“Be careful,” she says above the sound of the wind, and I watch her as she steps closer. Her hand relaxes against my arm and I let it fall into my palm, opening my fingers and entwining them loosely with hers. I turn my body, blocking off most of the wind.

Her face is broken open, strangely and almost painfully vulnerable. She meets my gaze like she’s asking a question, and then drops it, stumbling over my face and resting on a point near my chin. I step in closer, looking up at her.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” she murmurs, smiling a little. I can feel how fast her pulse is in my hand.

I step in so close, her warm skin becomes my whole world, and I lower my voice to speak into her ear.

“Your human sound,” I whisper, my lips brushing her cheek. “Falling through space.”

She glances up and then smiles indulgently, almost to herself.

“The lover’s song,” she says quietly, and closes her eyes.

“Baz,” I say, and lean in.

And then we’re so close than our bodies are lined and touching in all the right ways, and I can feel, I can feel her skin on me, round and real against my mouth and face, all Baz against me, and then her hand reaches for the back of my neck and her mouth moves against mine and I am shocked by intimacy of it.

Right here, I think. She’s right here. Finally.

Finally.

And she leans in and in and in, and I think, God, yes. This is what it feels like.

This is what it feels like to be alive.

* * *

**Baz**

There is the sea, and then there is the sky. They both reach, long stretches of violent blues, towards the horizon, to meet each other. Forward and forward, whilst the sun beats on.

When you’re at the edge of the sea, it feels like the whole world is spread open for you, presenting itself in all its wild, immovable vastness. It feels like all your answers are right there, inside you, and like they are all you have and will ever need. It feels like the beginning and the end. It feels like honesty.

Maybe I’m just a puerile romantic under all the cynicism. But it’s how I feel. And I’m starting to think that how I feel is all I’ve ever had.

* * *

We take the train home, later. When I suggest it she quirks her head towards the car park curiously and I shrug and say, “It’s not my car.”

Embarrassingly, Sophie has to show me how to work the ticket machine at the station. We wait for the train together on the icy metal chairs as she tells me about the time she got stuck in the train bathroom and had to ask the conductor for help, and I snort into her shoulder, and when the train comes, she takes me by the hand and leads me into it.

And regardless of what comes after, I know as it happens to me that I will always remember the sunlight sloping over her shoulders as she laughs and runs down the carriages, her hair dancing out behind her – her glorious, golden, Sophie Snow hair – and when she turns around and catches me watching her, leaning against the glass, I smile.

And when she reaches for me and pulls me down onto a set of slightly gross chairs and comes in close, her forehead pressed against mine as the view rolls on by, all greens and reds and yellows, the world spilling into our little space,  I just know –

I know –

This is why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I kind of lied. This isn't, in technical terms, the last chapter. There's going to be an epilogue, which I'll post in a week (promise!) There's also going to be a sex scene, which I'll post as a separate story from this. So. Keep an eye out if you want the smut. 
> 
> But this is like, the official last chapter. I hope you guys liked it. I really, really enjoyed writing this one. As always, love to hear your thoughts. Your support has been so wonderful to me - but I'm going to wait until next week to get all sentimental on your asses. Until then, have a great week <3


	15. Epilogue

**Sophie**

“We’re going to miss our train,” I say.

Penny frowns at me. “Stop worrying,” she says. “It’ll be fine. We still have – what? – half an hour to get there.”

“That’s if those two don’t stop to get coffee,” I point out. “And they will. Trust me.”

“Micah won’t. He’s too valiant.”

I look over at Penny, and raise a brow. God, I’m being influenced.

“She’s very persuasive.” I tell her.

Penny looks at me for a long moment, and then we both start giggling. She sighs and swerves on the bench, plopping her head down in my lap. I reach for her hair. Red, this time.

“You’re so in love, Sophie,” she says in a sing-song voice. “It’s dreadful, really. How bad she’s got you.”

I snort and look down. “Says you. Like you and Micah aren’t practically a walking and talking durex advert.”

She slaps my arm lightly as she gives an affronted shout. I start laughing again until an old lady reading the newspaper beside us shushes us.

“Seriously though,” says Penny, smiling up at me. “I’m happy for you. You look good together. And fit, weirdly enough.”

“Pen, I got you a cappuccino.”

Penny gasps and sits up straight, berating Micah even as she reaches for the cup. I look up, and meet Baz’s eye. She smirks and gives me my hot chocolate.

“I told you I could convince him,” she says smugly, wrapping an arm around my waist. I grin and step closer.

“And I believed you. You’re evil,” I breathe against her chin, and her eyes flicker to my mouth. “Relentlessly so.”

She hums, and reaches down to press a peck against my cheek. She smells like winter and cigarette smoke, because I still haven’t convinced her to quit the damned things.

“Oh, break it up you two. We have a train to catch. And you need to tell me about the history lecture Baz.”

Me and Micah fall into step behind them as Baz and Penny start a heated conversation about the quality of the history course at Glasgow University. I watch them go, the lazy afternoon light sparkling off my girlfriend’s eyes.

Girlfriend. It’s taken so long to get here. I’m just glad we made it.

I’m just glad that I get this, walking down the stone pavements, listening to my friends argue about University. About our futures. Our chances to get out and face the big bad world.

Me and Baz’s chance to escape our parents. Because not everything is perfect. But we have each other, and we have endless possibilities, and we have hope.

Girlfriends. It’s taken so long, but it’s here now.

I walk with them to the station. The sky is as blue as ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Okay. It's over. Which is my cue to go sappy on y'all asses.
> 
> Huge thanks to my beta, dragonsandgayvampires, who gave me the support I needed to finish this fic when I got stuck about halfway through, and has been so helpful and patient. Also, thanks to my irl friends who kept reading this even though they weren't even that invested in snowbaz or lesbians to begin with but persevered. I really do appreciate the time you take. You know who you are.  
> Also, massive fucking thank you to all the readers, and especially everyone who has commented and cheered me on. I genuinely didn't expect anyone to read this, and I probably would've quit if it wasn't for your kind words. It feels amazing to have readers who care so much. And to know that, like, there's way more confused queer snowbaz-shipping gals out there, roaming archive for a few slivers of femslash. Stick in there. Liking girls is so wonderful once you get past all the internalised shit and the awkwardness. (hmu if you ever need someone to talk to) (im on tumblr) (....@pussypetal)
> 
> Oh! And the sex scene is up now, so check it out for gal on pal action! It's called Petals and Pink, because I'm a fucking artist. 
> 
> Alright. That's everything. I'm writing about drarry and gay dragons next, if anyone is interested. Until then, thanks for reading and STAY GAY <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I just decided to write a snowbaz genderbend because I absolutely ADORE snowbaz, but I also wanted to write about girlhood and what it's like to question your sexuality as a teenage girl - I don't know, I just feel like there isn't enough femslash around - but let's not get political.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and if you like it or don't or have any thoughts please leave a comment below! :) The credit for Baz's name goes to deservingporcupines on tumblr. Ta

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Art of Hating Sophie Snow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261513) by [SkittlesAddict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkittlesAddict/pseuds/SkittlesAddict)
  * [A Steamy Shower](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8464270) by [SkittlesAddict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkittlesAddict/pseuds/SkittlesAddict)




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